Resurgam
by Joriki
Summary: A Dark Shadows reimagining, set in the present day. Finished at last! Happy Halloween! :)
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

_My name is Victoria Winters._

Victoria chewed the end of her pen, staring at the blank expanse of page. It was kind of a dumb line to start with. After all, she was writing this for herself, not for anyone else; she didn't need to be reminded of her own name. But for some reason every time she started a journal, every time she sat down with pen and paper and tried in earnest to make some sense of her life, that was where she started . . . and stopped. She couldn't get past that first line.

Sighing, she closed her notebook and stared out the train window at the landscape whizzing by. New England in the fall: it should have been lovely, but the trees mostly had a sodden brown look under the rain-heavy sky. Occasionally one would rise up vivid gold or crimson, like a flame; it gave her a weird feeling of traveling down a long, gloomy corridor lit by torches.

She was on her way to Collinsport, a seaside town she'd only recently heard of, to live with the Collinses, a family she had never met. They needed a tutor for their nine-year-old boy, David, who was unable to attend school. "Behavioral problems," that was all she'd been told—"he's been emotionally unbalanced ever since his mother left." He lived with his father Roger, his aunt Elizabeth, his cousin Carolyn, and a housekeeper, Mrs. Johnson—just the five of them at Collinwood, a vast and lonely mansion by the sea.

It was an unusual offer and why they had contacted _her_ was a mystery. But Victoria had accepted the job without hesitation. Of course it would be a challenge, but she felt sure she was up to it. And she loved working with kids.

Victoria was good with kids, probably in part because of her youthful appearance. At twenty-two she was small and slender, with wide hazel eyes and long, unruly dark hair. She'd been told she had a pretty face, but she wore no makeup and dressed indifferently ("grad-student chic" was how she wryly referred to her style). She looked—and was—innocent, good-natured and uncomplicated; but she also had a certain gravity and reserve that didn't seem to belong to her age. "An old soul," someone had called her when she was a little girl.

An orphan herself, she had a deep affinity for children who had lost one or both parents or who lacked a stable home life. But that wasn't her only reason, or even her main one, for taking this job. There was something else, away in the back of her mind—something so abstract and strange that she tried not to think about it much—that had made the decision for her.

At certain times of her life Victoria had had a vague sense of being . . . not _controlled_ exactly, but _drawn_ in one direction or another, by something outside of herself. She had no concept of what it might be. She wasn't religious—it was nothing as clear-cut as God or the devil—and she wasn't crazy. She never heard voices in her head telling her to do things. But once in awhile she would know irrefutably, "This is right," or "This is the way I should go," in a way that had nothing to do with reason. Or an idea would pop into her head that she _knew_ she couldn't have thought up on her own. At any rate, when she heard about the Collinsport offer, that intuition or whatever it was had made itself felt.

_This is right,_ she had felt, inchoately, insistently. _This will bring me closer to—_

To what?

She frowned at her reflection in the window, thinly superimposed on the bleak twilit world outside, and tried to dismiss the feeling. She wasn't acting on impulse, she reminded herself. She had plenty of good, sensible reasons for coming here. The salary, the work experience, the networking opportunities that a wealthy family might provide. . . . Her mind went down the list automatically, and she turned her gaze away from the window.

It was dark and beginning to rain when the train reached Collinsport. Victoria went outside on shaky legs and tried to assume her habitual serene, can-do expression. She wanted to look mature and professional, but she felt small and nervous and horribly young.

She drew her sweater a little tighter about her and looked around. Just across from the station, a sagging wooden sign proclaimed Welcome to Collinsport. Down the road, a neon light blinked the words "The Blue Whale." A streetlamp glimmered overhead, wrapped in a hazy nimbus. In the daylight it was probably a nice enough town, but in the dark it seemed lethargic and distinctly unwelcoming.

Why wasn't anyone there to meet her? She wondered if they had forgotten she was coming. For awhile she stood there, shivering and dejected; then a fresh salt wind blew against her face, cool and bracing, and revived her somewhat. She could taste the sea.

_Home,_ she thought suddenly.

She arranged her luggage next to her and settled down to wait.

…

"So your name's Barnabas, huh?" The cab lurched over a pothole in the muddy road. "People ever call you Barney?"

"Not twice," Barnabas replied, staring fixedly out the window. He was in no mood for conversation, but the driver was a garrulous sort and didn't notice. While he prattled on, Barnabas strained for a glimpse of his old home in the distance.

Collinwood.

Why he felt compelled to return now, he did not know. He dared not examine his own motives too closely; there were too many memories, buried but unquiet, that should never be evoked. Really, it was insane even to think of coming back. He had left nothing behind but terror and death, and a family nearly destroyed by a series of crushing losses. What did he hope to come back to?

He ignored that question, concentrating instead on the world outside. It was a wet and moonless night, but his eyes, keen as a cat's in the dark, missed nothing. The landscape was so different from what he remembered, it might have been a foreign country. Even the trees! . . . Well, people often claimed that New England autumns weren't what they used to be. Only Barnabas knew it for a fact.

He wondered how much the estate had changed in his absence. The "Old House"—his house—had to be empty, if it was still standing; the very idea of people living in it was obscene. The newer, "Great House," closer to the port, was where the Collins family lived now. _His_ family. His knuckles whitened around his cane.

The word "vampire" made his head swing round in alarm. "I beg your pardon?"

"The Collinsport vampire. It's famous. A couple times, back in the 17- and 1800s, there were a bunch of unsolved murders around Collinsport. People had the blood drained out of 'em. I saw this thing about it on the History Channel . . ."

Barnabas looked down at the silver wolf's head that topped his cane, stroking it with his thumb, fighting back a wave of sickening memories. The thirst—the mindless urge to kill. The churning excitement of the hunt. The smell of his victim's fear. And the blood—being surfeited, saturated with it—vital, ecstatic, horrible.

And then waking, as if from a dream, and realizing what he'd done.

"They say there's an underground chamber somewhere in the cemetery," the driver went on. "That's where the vampire's coffin is supposed to be."

"Chained shut," Barnabas heard himself say.

"Yeah. You know the story."

The story! How much of "the story" was known? Was it possible he might be recognized, even after all this time? For an agonizing moment he was back in that chained coffin, locked away from the world, alone in the suffocating darkness.

Buried alive. . . .

He sat rigid and still, controlling his panic with difficulty. It would not happen again. Let fools talk of the Collinsport vampire all they wanted; he would not give himself away. No matter what, they would never, ever put him in the ground again.

When they passed the forlorn Welcome to Collinsport sign, Barnabas thumped his cane against the car floor. "Let me out here."

He stepped out and immediately left the main road, heading into the woods. The path to the Old House was long gone, of course, but he could still sense where it lay beneath the dead leaves and undergrowth. Odd, that the unfamiliar scenery had not confounded his sense of direction. The strangeness that met his eyes, he realized, was all on the surface; underneath, this place was as it had always been.

When the Old House came into view, Barnabas stopped abruptly, overcome by several emotions at once. A fleeting gladness that the house was still intact, though deserted. Dismay at the state of the grounds—the patriarchal old trees grown ragged and twisted, the garden overrun with brambles and weeds. A fierce sadness to see the windows boarded up, except for a few that some vandal had pried open, reminding him horribly of empty, staring eyes. Barnabas clenched his fists. How he had loved this house!—and how he had grown to hate it! It should have been burned to the ground. It shouldn't have been left like this: a blinded, gutted, soulless thing.

Then a light flashed from within the house, and every other emotion was instantly swallowed up in dread.

He approached cautiously, resisting the urge to turn and run. Whatever this presence was, be it man or devil (and Barnabas had had plenty of experience with both), it would not take possession of _his_ house without a fight.

But when he looked in the window, he saw only a man poking around with a flashlight. A thief or a drifter, he guessed. Would he leave quietly? If not . . .

Barnabas entered the room silently. In a calm, low voice he asked, "What are you doing here?"

The man whirled to face him, and the beam from the flashlight swung into Barnabas's eyes, momentarily blinding him. Instinctively he hissed and took a step back.

"What the . . . !" The man dropped the flashlight and pressed his fist against his mouth, smothering a hoarse scream. "_What are you?_"

Barnabas hadn't meant to, but he knew he'd shown his teeth. Damn! Another moment and this fool would be running back to Collinsport screaming bloody murder.

"I'm not going to—" He almost said "hurt you," but thought better of it. "Don't move. Look at me."

The man was shaking like a frightened rabbit. With an effort Barnabas caught and held those blank, wild eyes with his own, staring him into stillness. This fellow was perhaps thirty years old—sturdily built, bigger than Barnabas, with pale stubble on his jaw—but it was clear he was still no more than a child.

"What's your name, son?" Barnabas asked more gently.

"Willie L-Loomis."

Loomis. Barnabas closed his eyes briefly. He remembered a young Ben Loomis, a servant, from long ago. A good, loyal soul. When the Collinses' other servants had deserted them, swearing that Collinwood was cursed, Ben had stood by the family. And later—much, much later, after an eternity in that chained coffin underground—an old, old man had set him free.

Of course, Barnabas, crazed with thirst, had killed the poor devil immediately and fled, not even looking back. Old Ben Loomis was only the first of many that night. But Barnabas remembered him; and that face in his memory, twisted in terror, was eerily similar to the one he was looking at now.

"Listen carefully, Willie Loomis." He resumed his steady, piercing gaze. "You work for me now. You'll do whatever I may require you to do, and you'll speak of me to no one. In return, I will let you stay here and I will . . . try not to harm you. But if you fail me—if you betray me—I will kill you."

Willie's eyes wavered slightly, but he did not flinch. He gave a barely perceptible nod.

"Good."

Barnabas walked past him into the corridor, heedless of the rats that scurried across his path. The air smelled of mold and rot, and dust lay thick over every surface. Rain trickled down from several places where the roof needed repairs. But Barnabas, looking around him, felt his sense of gloom beginning to lift. He sensed _nothing_ here—no trace of the evil he had dreaded to confront. It was as if the dead, like the living, had forsaken this place . . . as if the horrors of the past had never been.

He wandered from room to room, hardly daring to hope. Again, nothing. No ghosts. No bloodstains. Nothing dire or vengeful awaited him here. Only a very old, neglected house crying out for someone to take care of it.

His mind rapidly assessed the damage as he made his way back to Willie. He might be able to restore this house within a year; with a team of laborers, it might be a matter of months. And funding . . . yes, he knew where he could get that. All at once the plan became splendidly clear.

"The first thing you'll do," he announced to a startled Willie, "is help me restore my house."

He went swiftly up the staircase, which groaned at every step, to a door at the far end of the corridor. When he entered, he shut the door behind him. No other eyes should see this room; it would be a sacrilege. He would let others help him work on the rest of the house, but this room would be his alone.

On the wall was a portrait of a girl, as clear and vivid as if it had been painted yesterday. Barnabas marveled at its condition. Surely, after so many years in this moldering old house, the painting should have suffered some damage. But it would have hurt him to see that beautiful face marred. Such a bright, _living_ face on the canvas . . . just the way he wanted to remember her.

From the dressing-table he picked up a silver music box, so tarnished and dusty it was virtually unrecognizable, and opened the lid with trembling fingers. At the slow stirring of those familiar notes—a tune he had thought he'd never hear again—he looked up at the girl's painted eyes and realized that all he had come back for, all that had kept him from going entirely to pieces during his long exile, was the hope of seeing that face once more.

_My love . . ._

For her he would drive the shadows from this house and fill it with light, with all of its remembered grace and beauty. For all the Collinses, the living and the dead, but especially for her: a girl whose name no one else remembered, who had been dust for over two centuries, and whose family had long since vanished. He had given up searching for her likeness in the outside world. Here was the end of the road; here, with her image and her music box, was as near to her as he would ever be.

Home.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Mrs. Johnson drove to the station to pick Victoria up. "So sorry, dear. Roger was planning to come and get you himself, but we had a bit of a crisis this evening. Had to take David to the hospital. I hope you weren't waiting too long."

"The hospital? What happened?"

"He cut himself," the old woman said grimly. "He does that. He's been pretty good, though, for the past month or so; we thought we could leave him alone. His therapist said he was making such good progress." She wiped an angry tear from her eye. "And now _this_—tonight, of all nights. I'm so sorry."

Victoria didn't know what to say. Somehow the phrase "behavioral problems" had not prepared her for this.

"It's hard for us to talk about, you understand," Mrs. Johnson went on in a vaguely apologetic tone. "The Collinses are very private people."

"I see." She shifted uncomfortably in her seat. To do that to himself—poor messed-up kid! Or maybe there was something else going on. Maybe someone was abusing him.

"But I'd hate for you to get the wrong idea about this family, or about David. He's just a very unhappy little boy, a very sick little boy, and Roger and Elizabeth are doing all they can for him. All _you_ need to do, Miss Winters, is give him his lessons, be gentle with him, and keep an eye on him when the rest of us can't."

"I can do that." Victoria managed a smile, but she felt less sure than she sounded.

The Great House of Collinwood, at first sight, was another surprise. The grounds were surrounded by high stone walls like a medieval fortress. A wrought-iron gate opened on a long, winding driveway, leading up to a house that dwarfed all Victoria's expectations. An elegant but baffling mix of architectural styles, eerily illuminated by security lights in the shimmering rain—towers and turrets, Grecian columns, stained-glass windows, even gargoyles in odd corners—it resembled a monstrous fairy-tale castle.

The parlor, where she was obliged to remove her wet shoes, was equally imposing. In the light of a grand but dim old chandelier, the mahogany furniture and _objets d'art_ were arranged as tastefully as a catalog display, and with as little personality. There was no sign that a child lived here—no games, no children's books or videos, no speck of dirt on the parquet floor. Was the whole house like this? She felt sorrier for David Collins by the minute.

"Your room is up those stairs," Mrs. Johnson was saying. "Last door on the left. It has its own bathroom. If you need anything, just holler."

"Okay. Thank you."

The door across from her room was ajar, spilling light into the hallway. She peeked inside and saw a teenage girl sprawled on the bed, reading a magazine and twitching slightly to the music on her iPod. This must be David's cousin, Carolyn. Victoria momentarily forgot her manners and stared.

The girl had amazing hair. Thick and wavy and platinum-blond, cascading to her waist, it contrasted with her dark eyebrows but almost matched her white skin. She wore very short shorts that showed off her long legs, and a baggy cowl-necked sweater that showed off nothing at all but made for an oddly sexy combination. When she saw Victoria, she hastily sat up and pulled the buds out of her ears.

"Hey." Her eyes were pale blue, heavily lined in black. "Who're you?"

"Victoria Winters. I'm David's new tutor."

"Oh, right." She sank back into her magazine. As Victoria went into her room and dumped her luggage on the floor, the girl called as an afterthought, "Need any help with your stuff?"

"No, this is all I've got. Thanks."

Silence.

Victoria closed her door and began to unpack. It was a nice room, bigger and airier than the cramped dorm rooms she was used to; but even when all her things were in place, it still looked as impersonal as a hotel. For a moment she looked sadly at the blank walls and wished she had a roommate, somebody to clutter up the space with photos and knickknacks. She wasn't sure she could inhabit it all by herself.

On the wall above the writing desk, she hung the sole picture she owned: a cheap foil-art print of some palm trees against a Caribbean sunrise. She had always dreamed of living by the sea. . . . It struck her that this was something else she could write in the notebook. _My name is Victoria Winters, and I've always wanted to live by the sea. And now I do._

She smiled and closed her eyes, listening for it—a low ever-present moan, inexpressibly sorrowful, mingling with the sounds of rain and wind. _Never leave,_ it seemed to say, over and over again. _Never leave._

That first night at Collinwood, the sea was the only voice that troubled her dreams.

…

The next morning David was home from the hospital, but Victoria was not allowed to see him yet. "He's resting today," Mrs. Johnson explained as she led the way to the breakfast room. "He gets unsettled so easily, and we don't want another—episode—you understand."

The rest of the Collinses were seated at the table. Victoria saw a dark, hard-featured man and a dark, frail little woman, and between them, Carolyn in her pajamas, looking pale and childlike without makeup on. Coffee, orange juice, toast and eggs were on the table, but nobody seemed to be eating much.

"We haven't met," said the woman, rising to shake Victoria's hand. She wore a flapperish beaded dress and a double necklace of black pearls. Who dressed like that for breakfast, Victoria wondered. "I'm Elizabeth Collins Stoddard. This is my daughter, Carolyn, and my brother, Roger."

"We don't stand on ceremony here, Miss Winters." Roger barely looked up from his newspaper. "Help yourself if you want anything."

As Victoria sat down, a petulant voice spoke suddenly from the top of the stairs, making everyone jump. "You didn't tell me _she_ was here."

"David!" cried Elizabeth. "What are you doing out of bed?"

David stood on the landing, a small figure in blue flannels, with both his forearms bandaged in gauze. He was a handsome little boy, dark like his father and his aunt, with a touch of baby-roundness still in his face; but his eyes, fixed on Victoria, were oddly adult and contemptuous. "I'm fine, Aunt Elizabeth. I just wanted to say hello."

"Um—hi, David. I'm Victoria."

"I know who you are. When did you get here?"

"Last night. It was pretty late."

"They forgot about you, didn't they?" A gleam appeared in his eyes. "Did you have to wait out in the rain?"

"All right, David, that's enough!" Roger snapped. "Go lie down. You can talk to Miss Winters later."

David gave Victoria a wink, which no one else saw, and vanished. The rest of the family resumed eating, or picking at their food, as if nothing had happened.

Victoria was nonplussed. Had David cut himself because of _her_—just to cause a sensation and make everyone forget about her for an hour or two? That look of vicious satisfaction on his face . . . no, it couldn't be that. She knew that children might do bizarre or awful things out of rage, or despair, or just a need for attention; but what kind of child would mutilate himself out of _spite?_

She glanced at the Collinses, but Roger was immersed in his newspaper and Elizabeth looked steadfastly at her plate. Only Carolyn's eyes met hers, briefly, and in them she saw a veiled sympathy.

…

For much of the day, Victoria trailed Mrs. Johnson around the house and listened to her stories of the Collins family. The old woman obviously appreciated having someone to talk to, and Victoria was grateful for the guided tour. She was certain she'd get lost if she tried to explore the place on her own.

The original structure of the Great House, she learned, was over two hundred years old. It had been built to replace the smaller, "Old House," which was still standing on the other side of town. ("They should tear it down, if you ask me," Mrs. Johnson remarked. "It's an eyesore.") Old Joshua Collins, the shipping magnate for whom Collinsport was named, had poured his considerable fortune into a Federal-style mansion big enough to house several generations of Collinses; and his descendants had had a number of additions built, giving the house its current Gothic-revival flair. But although the family's wealth had increased over the years, their numbers had steadily diminished. Now Roger and Elizabeth, living off their trust fund, were the only ones left. Most of the rooms in the Great House were closed off, and no one could remember a time when they had been used, or had any idea of what lay behind the locked doors.

"That's so sad," murmured Victoria as she walked along the portrait gallery. So many dead-and-gone Collinses. She thought of lines she had once read in an old churchyard, a carved motto decorated with grinning skulls: _As you are now, so once were we /And as we are, so shall you be._

"I shouldn't tell you this"—Mrs. Johnson lowered her voice confidentially, as if the portraits might be listening—"but there's an old legend that the Collins family is cursed."

"Really?"

"Yes. It's true they've had an awful lot of bad luck. So many of them have died sudden or violent deaths. And quite a few of them ended up in mental institutions—though _that's_ just genetics, I guess." There was an uncomfortable pause, and Victoria knew they were both thinking of David. "And then there was the whole business with the vampire. Some people connected that with the Collins curse, too."

"Vampire?"

"Oh, yes. It's silly really. Back in the 1790s, and then again in the 1850s, there were some unexplained deaths—probably animal attacks. But a story grew up around the 'Collinsport vampire,' and it's a bit of local folklore now. A couple years ago a TV crew came up to Collinsport to film a documentary about it—_History's Mysteries,_ or _Haunted History,_ something like that—and tried to get permission to film it at the Old House, but Roger wouldn't let them. He was furious about the whole thing."

"Why? I think it's kind of interesting."

"Well, Roger's got a lot of family pride. He didn't want them to dredge up all that nonsense about the curse. But they made the documentary anyway, and now everyone knows about it, and it's a sore subject around here. Don't let Roger or Elizabeth know I told you about it."

"I won't."

Just then a deep, ponderous tone rang through the gallery like a gong being struck—the doorbell, as it turned out. "Excuse me a moment."

While Mrs. Johnson went to answer the door, Victoria paced idly between the rows of portraits, feeling as if their eyes were following her. She heard swift footsteps, and then Roger's voice:

"He says he's our cousin? We don't have a cousin. Tell him to get lost."

"I really think you should come see for yourself, sir." Mrs. Johnson sounded rather shaken. "I think Mrs. Stoddard should see him, too."

Heavy sigh. "Fine. Go get Elizabeth if you want. But this better be quick." Then silence.

Victoria waited for what seemed like a very long time. Finally, yielding to curiosity (and wondering if Mrs. Johnson had forgotten about her), she exited the gallery through a pair of carved Chinese doors and found herself in the parlor. The Collinses merely glanced at her when she entered, but the stranger immediately stood up—the reflexive gesture of a man who had had social graces drilled into him as a little boy.

"It's all right, Victoria. Come and sit down," said Elizabeth. "This is Barnabas Collins from England. Cousin Barnabas, this is my nephew's tutor, Victoria Winters."

There was nowhere to sit but on the brocaded settee next to Elizabeth, directly across from Barnabas. Victoria tried not to stare, but her eyes were drawn to him nonetheless.

He was tall and broad-shouldered, but ascetically thin, with glossy black hair and a finely modeled, almost delicate face. With his dark clothes and pallid skin, he almost looked as if he'd strayed out of a black-and-white photograph. Only his eyes had color; they were a clear, light blue, piercing and intelligent—the "Collins blue" eyes that, according to Mrs. Johnson, occurred just once in a generation.

But it was his hands, resting on his silver-headed cane, that presently caught Victoria's attention. White and slender with very long fingers, they had a quality that was both sensual and disturbing. For a moment her gaze lingered on his hands—on the heavy onyx ring on his forefinger, the silver watch on his wrist—until she realized, with a start, that he was looking back at her; and at the same time his hands wrapped convulsively around his cane.

"I can't get over it," Roger was saying. "It's unreal. You look _exactly _like him. Have you seen his portrait?"

"I know of it," Barnabas smiled. His voice was darkly beautiful, even when uttering commonplaces. "He had this ring and this cane in the same portrait. I have such a fondness for the old fellow, I carry them with me always."

"We didn't know there _was_ an English branch of the family," Elizabeth remarked, fingering her pearls. "We knew that the original Barnabas Collins—Joshua's eldest son—moved to England in 1790; but the family history doesn't say anything about his children."

"No, I don't suppose it would. He severed all ties with his family when he left, and the silence has been mutual ever since. I myself didn't know I had cousins in America until recently."

"And are there any more of you?" asked Elizabeth.

"No. My parents have been dead for some time, and I have no brothers or sisters."

He addressed his remarks to the Collinses, but his eyes kept drifting back to Victoria, with an expression both troubled and amazed. Why should he look at her like that? She glanced down at her outfit—brown sweater, brown skirt, and mary janes—and saw nothing that would attract undue attention. But there was something uncanny in the contrast between his smooth voice and his agitated eyes—something terrible, too, in the way his hands gripped his cane, as if barely suppressing some fierce emotion. Under his gaze her pulse quickened and her face grew warm, and she shrank involuntarily against the back of the settee.

And yet . . .

She found it hard to look away from him. He wasn't handsome exactly, though there was a certain charm in the elfin, ageless quality of his features. But there was power, virile and mysterious, in every line of him. It showed in his hands, in the firm set of his mouth and jaw, and most of all, irresistibly, in his eyes. It was the inherent power of a man who could be tender, passionate, or violent; his eyes told her that he could be, and was, all three.

"You want to do _what?_" Roger's incredulous voice broke into her thoughts. "Do you have any idea how much time and money that would take?"

"Time is not an issue, and neither is money," Barnabas replied. "My inheritance will more than suffice. I want to do this."

"How old are you, son?"

He didn't bat an eye. "Twenty-five."

"So let me get this straight. You're a twenty-five-year-old kid with more money than you know what to do with, and you want to spent it on restoring a moldy old house that no one lives in?"

"Roger!" Elizabeth frowned at him.

"Actually, what I want to do is take up residence there myself." Barnabas gave them a disarming grin. "All on my own account—you need not worry about costs or labor. And I will pay you whatever you ask."

"_I_ think it's a lovely idea," said Elizabeth. "And we wouldn't dream of charging you rent. The Old House is as much yours as it is ours. Don't you think, Roger?"

Roger held up his hands in mock defeat. "Have it your way. Saves me the trouble of tearing the place down."

Elizabeth clasped her hands in delight, and Victoria dared to smile. She tried to fix her gaze on the floor, but in spite of herself her eyes rose briefly to meet his. He was smiling back at her—a warm, knowing smile that somehow excluded the others in the room—and she hastily lowered her eyes again.

Just then there was a loud crash in the room above them, followed by a scream of pain or rage that turned Victoria's blood to ice water.

"David!" Roger sprang to his feet and ran up the stairs, with Elizabeth close behind. "I thought he was asleep!"

"I thought Carolyn was watching him!"

Victoria stood up, unsure of what to do. It hardly seemed polite to leave Barnabas Collins alone in the parlor, and she was afraid to go upstairs. But for some reason, the prospect of being alone with Barnabas Collins frightened her more.

"Should I go?" he asked.

"You might as well." She glanced anxiously toward the stairs. "I'm sure it's nothing serious . . ."

He looked into her wide, fear-filled eyes and started to say something, then apparently changed his mind. "Tell them I've gone to the Old House," he said instead. "You may call on me if anything is needed."

With that, he was gone.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

As it turned out, the incident upstairs was not as bad as everyone feared. David had simply knocked over a bookcase and then proceeded to yell his head off, for no apparent reason other than boredom. And Carolyn really had been watching him—in her way, which consisted of sitting in the next room with the door open. So Carolyn was grounded and spent the next afternoon, with Roger's help, putting the bookcase to rights. David was not punished at all.

Victoria was relieved it was no worse, but the whole thing still seemed very odd. For one thing, no one questioned how a skinny nine-year-old could have toppled one of the massive, floor-to-ceiling oak bookcases in the Collinwood library. She herself gave one an experimental shove, putting all her weight against it, and couldn't budge it an inch. Really, it was amazing that the fall of something that heavy hadn't caused the parlor ceiling to collapse! How David had done it, she could not fathom.

"He's David," was Carolyn's grim explanation. "He does crap like this all the time."

"What else does he do?"

"What doesn't he do!" She gave a dry laugh. "Ever see that movie _The Good Son_? Well, that kid's kind of like David. Only sweeter."

Victoria didn't know what to make of David. On her first teaching-day she was on her guard, determined not to be afraid, but still very aware of all the potentially dangerous objects in the room. Roger had told her he would be working in his studio just down the hall, and the door was open in case she needed to call for help.

But when David came in and sat down at his desk, she was struck by the change in him. There was no suggestion of malice or violence about him now. He kept his eyes downcast, and whenever she asked him a question, he answered so softly she could barely hear him. He was like a different boy altogether.

She watched him as he worked, hunched over the assignment she'd given him. She noticed the way he gripped his pencil, the rigid set of his shoulders; he never seemed to relax for a moment. _Poor kid,_ she couldn't help thinking. A very unhappy little boy, a very sick little boy . . . Mrs. Johnson was right about that.

Even on his best days he was moody and unpredictable. As long as he was being watched, there were no more freakish tantrums or self-inflicted wounds; but he did other strange things, little things that only Victoria seemed to witness. Like the bizarre and sometime frightening doodles he drew in the margins of his schoolwork. Or the time she walked past his bedroom and heard him talking to himself, low and rapidly, in beautiful French.

Cautiously she put her head in the doorway to listen. David stood with his back to her, facing the window. A breeze rustled the ivy that trailed across the panes, and the whispering grew louder.

"_Qu'est-ce que vous dites?_" Victoria asked—one of the few phrases she remembered from her French class.

David started violently. He turned and stared at her, wide-eyed. "What?"

"Weren't you speaking French just now?"

He shook his head. "I don't speak French."

"Come on, I heard you. What were you saying?"

"Nothing! Nobody's speaking French. Nobody's here."

"Okay." She backed off. "Never mind."

For some reason, this bothered her more than anything else he'd yet done. Why would he lie about an ability like that? And why that look of terror in his eyes? She could make no sense of it. But after that, she often found herself hearing things—imagining things, she told herself sternly—when she was alone. Every little creak and echo started to sound like a voice, a whisper, a string of words she could not quite understand. And sometimes, very softly, a mocking laugh.

…

Barnabas commenced work on the Old House immediately, tearing away rotten planks and sweeping out layers of accumulated rubbish with a manic energy that made poor Willie Loomis cower on the front porch. As he worked, he ceased to think of cold or fatigue, or even the constant, aching need for blood. One idea—one need—had temporarily driven out all others, possessing body and mind.

Victoria Winters.

The name was unfamiliar, but the face! He had recognized her the moment she walked in the room, and his nerves still reverberated with the shock. His joy, amazement and longing must have shown plainly on his face; it was all he could do to keep from crying out. The Collinses probably thought him quite mad. But it didn't matter. Nothing mattered except that she was here. Alive. Nearby.

Now that he had seen her—now that hope and meaning had suddenly, miraculously been restored to his existence—he was in a fever to complete the Old House as soon as possible. Every night he rose and worked alone, accomplishing almost as much as his half-dozen laborers did during the day. After a fortnight, they had already made admirable progress. But men had to be paid, and with the winter approaching, they would have to be paid generously to keep going at their current rate. Barnabas could not put off the errand any longer. It was time to visit the graveyard.

He fortified himself beforehand by opening one of Willie's veins. It was a thing he hated to do. Since his arrival in Collinsport, he had subsisted on the blood of animals in the woods. But he could not go without human blood indefinitely; he knew from grim experience what would happen if he tried. So Willie dutifully held out his arm, whimpering only a little at the bite, and Barnabas drank until Willie was about to faint.

"Good lad," Barnabas said gruffly as he bound up the wound, determined to treat the whole nightmarish business as matter-of-factly as possible. "Get some rest. I'll be back soon."

He made his way to the graveyard and into the Collins family crypt. As he entered, a shaft of moonlight illuminated the back wall, where the Collins coat of arms had been carved into the stone. There was the griffin rampant—the guardian of treasures and secrets—and below, unwittingly ironic, the motto _Resurgam._ "I shall rise again." A proper Christian sentiment for a place like this. But to Barnabas, it was a cruel joke.

He knew that there were two loose stones in the wall and the coat of arms provided clues as to where they were. One of them concealed a lever that would open a passageway down to the cellar; he would stay well away from _that_ stone. But the other, if memory served . . . yes, here it was. He pulled it out from the wall, uncovering a metal cask full of gold coins and jewels.

There was more here than he could carry. He had no idea how much it was all worth—it had been so long since he had had to bother with money—but a fraction of it would surely be enough to pay the workers and to buy all the things he wanted for the house. He filled his jacket pockets with coins and carefully put the rest back.

As he turned to leave, he was stopped cold by a low, eerie, rustling noise that emanated from beneath the floor. Bats in the cellar, he told himself, that was all. But for some reason it filled him with dread. For a moment he no longer felt the weight of the gold in his pockets, as if it were elf-gold and had turned to dust. Then there was silence, and the ominous feeling passed.

He walked out of the crypt with considerable relief. Outside, the night was a thing of beauty, with a hunter's moon on the rise over a landscape of shadows and mist. Beauty, as always, reminded him of Victoria Winters; he thought of her now, and knew he could not go another night without seeing her.

With the agility of a cat, he climbed over the graveyard fence, dropped silently down, and went in search of her.

…

In the evening Victoria went to Carolyn's room to talk. She was still mulling over the French incident, wanting to discuss it with someone but not sure how to bring it up. While Carolyn twisted her magnificent hair up in a knot, Victoria asked casually if her folks spoke French.

"Oh, probably," Carolyn said around a mouthful of bobby pins. "Roger and my mom went to fancy boarding schools. They might have learned it. Why?"

"I saw some French books in the library," said Victoria, truthfully enough. "I was just curious. Did David ever learn it, by chance?"

"I don't know. Roger used to take him traveling a lot—him and Laura, before Laura left. They went to Europe and stuff." She put up the last pin and dabbed on some lip gloss. "But I don't know if he actually picked up French that way."

Victoria nodded, thinking. Obviously David _had_ picked up French somehow, and he probably associated it with happy memories, with his mother. It was his own secret thing, and he didn't want to share it. That sort of made sense.

"Ugh." Carolyn frowned in the mirror at a blemish only she could see. She gave Victoria a critical look. "_You_ have great skin. What do you wash your face with?"

"A washcloth."

"No, I mean what cleanser do you use?"

"Water."

Carolyn rolled her eyes. "You disgust me."

Victoria grinned.

She had discovered that she liked Carolyn. To say that they were friends would have been an exaggeration, but after dealing with a disturbed little boy, the company of a very normal eighteen-year-old girl was refreshing. Indeed, Carolyn seemed a little too. . . well, _normal_ for a place like Collinwood, wrapped in its secretive, Gothic gloom. She was a noisy and vibrant presence, as only a teenager could be—watching TV, talking on the phone, treading loudly and banging doors wherever she went. She bore no resemblance to Roger, who spent most of his time painting in his studio (mostly dark, lugubrious seascapes); or to Elizabeth, who drifted wraithlike from room to room, always smiling but aloof. It was hard to believe that Carolyn was related to them at all.

"You're different from the rest of your family, you know?" Victoria said absently.

Carolyn laughed. "I'll take that as a compliment. The Collinses are a bunch of freaks."

"That's not what I meant."

"We are, though. We got curses, vampires . . . I ought to show you that _Haunted History _episode sometime. That'll piss Roger off. And then there's David! Enough said."

Victoria laughed too, a little uneasily. "No, I just meant—I figured you took after your dad or something."

"I wouldn't know. He left when I was a baby."

"Oh." She bit her lip. "Sorry. I didn't know that."

Carolyn dismissed her father with a flippant gesture. "Let's walk down to the Blue Whale. I think I want some pie."

"Sure."

The Blue Whale was a Collinsport fixture, a little family-owned restaurant that had been around since at least the 1950s and looked it. They ordered cherry pie and Coke from the girl behind the counter, a pretty redhead with a lip ring.

"Hi, Carolyn. Who's your friend?"

"Hey Maggie, this is Victoria. She's David's new tutor."

Maggie gave a low whistle. "Good luck with _that._"

"Hey, Joe. Hey, Daphne." Carolyn drifted over to a cluster of her friends by the jukebox, leaving Victoria to follow or to find her own spot. Feeling a bit like she was back in high school, she sat alone at a table by the window and took a book out of her purse—a tattered bilingual copy of _Les Fleurs du Mal,_ which she had found in the Collinwood library. While she ate, she read the English translation on one side and puzzled over the French on the other.

She wasn't sure how she felt about Baudelaire. Normally she liked poetry, at least of the Christina Rossetti or Emily Dickinson type; but she had never encountered poetry like this—this elegant, twisted, weirdly seductive verse. It fascinated and repelled her at the same time. Once or twice she closed the book and laid it aside, then opened it again.

Maggie came over, wiping her hands on a towel. "Everything all right, sweetie?"

"Yes, thanks." It was weird being called sweetie by a teenager. Almost as bad, in its way, as being called ma'am.

"So who's the man-candy?"

She almost choked on her soda. "I'm sorry?"

"Over by the door. Tall. Leather jacket. Checking you out."

Victoria ducked her head shyly. She didn't need to look; the suddenly spastic beating of her heart told her who it would be.

"Well, let me know if you need anything." Maggie retreated, smiling, as Barnabas Collins came up to the table and sat down.

He didn't say anything at first, just waited for her to look up from her book. When she finally did—reluctant to meet his eyes—she found herself, again, unable to look away.

"Miss Winters, isn't it?" he said cordially. "We met at Collinwood some weeks ago."

"Yes. Hi."

"What are you reading?"

She pushed _Les Fleurs du Mal_ across the table. He examined it with interest. "Do you read French?" he asked.

"Not really. I studied it in school, but I was never any good at it."

"'_En me penchant vers toi, reine des adorées, je croyais respirer le parfum de ton sang,_'" Barnabas read softly. "Most beautiful language in the world."

"I like it." She put the book back in her purse, wishing she knew what he'd said. Whatever it was, it sounded lovely.

"Will you take a walk with me, Miss Winters? It's a fine night."

"Um . . . just a minute."

She went over to Carolyn, aware that his eyes were following her. "Hey, your cousin Barnabas wants me to go with him."

"So go."

"Will you get home okay?"

"Maggie Evans can give me a ride when her shift's over." Carolyn grinned. "Go for it."

Victoria followed Barnabas to the door, which he opened for her. She glanced back at Maggie, who enthusiastically mouthed the word _Damn!_

"Where do you want to go?" she asked him when they were outside.

"Nowhere in particular. I just hate to waste good moonlight."

She laughed a little nervously. Somewhat to her relief, they started out at a leisurely pace along the road that would eventually lead back to Collinwood.

"How do you like Collinsport?" he inquired.

"So far, I like it a lot. It's got a really interesting atmosphere."

"How so?"

"Oh, you know. Such a sense of history. It's so old, there's a kind of richness to it . . . I don't know." She remembered then that Barnabas was from England, and laughed. "I guess to you, that's nothing extraordinary."

"I know what you mean, though," he smiled. "An old town like this is a palimpsest. The past is all around you, in layers; you can see and feel it everywhere you go."

She glanced at him—his profile pale and remote, his eyes fixed dreamily on the moon—and was surprised to feel a pulse of attraction. She had not thought she was attracted to Barnabas Collins. Intrigued by him, yes; a little afraid of him, perhaps. That would explain her heightened awareness of his presence, as well as her instinctive reluctance to be alone with him. But the other thing? That was new. . . . As she considered this, he turned to look at her, and she hastily looked away.

"How's the Old House coming along?"

"Splendidly. I've actually been able to move in."

"Already?"

"Yes, it didn't take long. I don't require much space. _Omnia mea mecum porto_—life's much simpler that way."

"So you speak Latin _and_ French. That's not intimidating at all."

He laughed at that. His laugh was unexpectedly youthful and bright, like a boy's. Somehow she got the feeling that he didn't laugh very often.

"Miss Winters—or may I call you Victoria?"

"Please do."

"All right, Victoria. Tell me about yourself."

"What about myself?"

"Anything. Your hometown, family, childhood. Whatever."

"Oh, that kind of stuff? There's not much to tell."

"Really? A beautiful girl sitting alone in a restaurant, reading Baudelaire? Never tell me she hasn't got a past."

_He's hitting on me,_ she realized, and blushed. Not sure how to respond, she shied away from talking about herself. "Oh, I don't know . . ."

"Come on, give me something. Your middle name."

"I don't have one."

"Well, then your favorite color. No, wait—let me guess."

They had reached the front gate of Collinwood, and now Barnabas paused and gazed at her. Again she sensed that power in him, that dangerous energy, thinly disguised by the banality of flirting. But she felt no fear at the moment . . . only a tingling excitement, and an uneasy sense that she _should_ be afraid.

"Lavender," he said suddenly.

"How'd you know that!"

"Spooky, isn't it." He grinned. "I'm a very good guesser. In fact, I've guessed a few other things about you."

"Oh, have you?"

"To wit—that you are intelligent and sensitive, and therefore you choose your friends carefully. If I desire a closer acquaintance with you, I won't get it for the asking; it will have to be earned. But you'll find I'm a patient man."

He held out his hand, and she gave him hers, thinking he meant to shake it. Instead he brought it to his lips and kissed it. His touch was cold—from the chill of the night, she supposed—but the brief caress sent a warm little thrill up her arm and made her shiver. "I'll see you again," he said, and left.

Victoria watched him walk away. He had a peculiarly graceful, ambling gait; an Old World kind of walk, she thought, very different from an American swagger. Even that cane he carried—an odd affectation, since he obviously didn't need it—somehow completed the picture of him as a gentleman of an earlier, more romantic era. An apt image, and a strangely familiar one. . . .

Her hand throbbed faintly where he had kissed it. Feeling suddenly cold, she hurried up the driveway to the Great House, letting the gate clang shut behind her.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

For many days afterward, Victoria thought of little else but Barnabas Collins. She found herself looking for him whenever she went out, straining to catch a glimpse of him in every crowd. She looked up _palimpsest_ in the dictionary and found it a beautiful word. And every time the phone rang, she was instantly on high alert in case it was him. But it never was.

"He won't call, you know," Carolyn laughed at her.

"Who?"

"Barnabas. He doesn't have a phone."

"Oh." She frowned in perplexity. "Why doesn't he have a phone?"

"He's restoring the Old House just like it was in the 1700s. No electricity, no running water, nothing." Carolyn made a face. "That's messed up."

Victoria shrugged. If it had been anyone but Barnabas Collins, she would have agreed. But the idea of Barnabas renouncing the modern world and immersing himself in his ancestral past seemed . . . yes, eccentric, but also noble in a way. Thoreau-like.

Once in awhile he would just show up, unannounced, in the evening. He never actually asked her out on a date; they would just stroll around Collinsport in the chilly moonlight—or, if the weather was bad, sit in the parlor—and talk. Victoria was surprised at how easy it was to talk to him. Very skillfully and patiently he drew her out, so that a little bit of her shyness fell away from her with each encounter. She began to tell him about herself, small things she had never told anyone: that she had always wanted to live by the sea, for instance, and that she secretly wished she could speak French, and that she occasionally had vivid nightmares about falling off a cliff . . . things like that, that had always seemed too insignificant to share or even to write in her journal. Barnabas relished these confidences, and he listened with an avidity that was almost as unsettling as it was flattering. But he never spoke of himself or his private life at all.

"It's not fair," she said to him, only half playfully, during one of their walks. "You know all this stuff about me, but I don't know anything about you."

He made his expression bland. "Why, what do you wish to know?"

"Oh, anything." In truth, Victoria wanted to know everything. After several months of this quasi-courtship, she still didn't know him any better than when they had first met. He wasn't uncommunicative; he could talk amusingly and engagingly on a wide range of subjects, and she was certainly never bored in his company. But his interest in impersonal matters was always just that—impersonal. He spoke of the wider world with as much detachment as if it were a novel he'd read, something that had no bearing on his reality. She still didn't know what interested him personally, other than the Old House and the Collins family history. (And, apparently, her.)

Barnabas laughed softly and took her hand. "All in good time, my dear. There are many things I would like to tell you . . . in time."

He paused and gazed at her, and for a moment she thought he would kiss her. She felt him draw closer, and she saw the unmistakable hunger in his eyes. But instead, he tucked her hand into the crook of his arm, and they walked on, talking of something else. And Victoria realized that if she wanted to learn more about him, she would have to do it in some other way.

During her free time she began to study the Collins family history, starting in the late 1700s with the original Barnabas Collins. At first glance, his portrait did look startlingly like the current Barnabas—the same black hair, blue eyes, and facial features; the same slender, sensual hands resting on his cane. But the longer she looked at him, the more it seemed to her that they weren't exactly alike. This young man had laughing eyes and a healthy, ruddy complexion, as if he had just come from riding or hunting. The cut of his dark red coat, which opened on a jabot of lace at his throat, indicated a build that was muscular rather than thin. Altogether he was quite a dashing figure, the pride of his family and (no doubt) the apple of some girl's eye.

He had been born in 1765, she learned, to Joshua and Naomi Collins. He had two younger brothers, Jeremiah and Daniel, and a younger sister, Sarah. All his siblings had died young; only Daniel, who had lived to twenty, had left behind a son. And Barnabas himself had gone to England in 1790 and disappeared, leaving no record of his children or his life there.

One afternoon, while poring over the Collins family tree, Victoria discovered something disturbing. All of the Collins men since 1790 had either died young or lived to a childless old age. Not one of them had lived to see his own grandchildren. . . .

Gradually she became aware of a soft, low singsong noise from across the room. David was sitting cross-legged on the floor, humming to himself and playing with the contents of his pencil box. It was Victoria's turn to supervise him, and so far he had been behaving himself. But for some reason, whatever he was doing now made her intensely uneasy.

"What have you got there, David?" she asked warily. It might be something harmless, like a deck of cards. Or it might be his pet tarantula, which he had once smuggled into class and put on the back of her sweater while she wrote on the whiteboard. She never knew what to expect from David's pencil box.

He stopped humming for a moment, scowled at her, and returned his attention to whatever he was doing. She was tempted to leave him alone, but then she remembered the time he had stolen an X-acto knife from Roger's studio and hidden it in his pencil box. That had nearly resulted in another "episode," as Mrs. Johnson would say.

"Come on, David. You'd better show me."

Ignoring her, he kept on humming. He also began to rock back and forth slightly, as if in a trance.

Victoria got up quietly and tiptoed across the room. David didn't seem to notice. But when she got behind him, he abruptly slammed the lid down on the pencil box and glared up at her.

"Okay." She sighed as she returned to her chair. The last thing she wanted to do was provoke one of his rages. As long as he wasn't actually bleeding, she wouldn't interfere.

Just then Elizabeth came in. "Oh, there you are, David. Come along or we'll be late for your appointment."

David got up, nudging the pencil box under the settee with his foot. Elizabeth didn't see him do this, but Victoria did. She waited until they were both gone before she went over to have a look.

The box was plastered all over with angry stickers: _DANGER!_, _KEEP OUT!_, skulls-and-crossbones. Bracing herself in case the tarantula or something worse was in there, Victoria opened it.

On top was a piece of card stock folded roughly into fourths. Underneath was a garnet earring, dark and glittering. Hadn't Elizabeth mentioned the other day that she was missing one? There was also a paintbrush, probably one of Roger's. And coiled at the bottom of the box was a long lock of pale blond hair.

Baffled, and feeling faintly sick, Victoria picked up the card stock and unfolded it. It was her own foil-art picture of palm trees, now crisscrossed with two ugly seams. She hadn't even noticed it was missing from her bedroom wall. When had David even had a chance to steal it, watched and checked throughout the day as he was? He must have taken all these things at night while everyone slept. Sneaking from room to room, rummaging in Elizabeth's jewelry box, cutting a lock of Carolyn's hair . . .

She closed the box and put it back under the settee. It occurred to her that she should take it and hide it somewhere else, so that she could show it to Roger or Elizabeth later; but she couldn't bear the thought of keeping it in her own room. She didn't want to look at or touch the thing again. She went to the kitchen and washed her hands in scalding hot water, trying to scrub away the feeling of panicky revulsion that had come over her.

It wasn't just the stealing that bothered her (although that was weird enough). It was the mystery of _why._ Victoria couldn't imagine what impulse had led David to pilfer these particular items, under cover of darkness, and then stow them in a place where she would be sure to see them. If he had intended to frighten her—and again, why?—he had succeeded. She felt more certain than ever that something dark and twisted was going on in the little boy's mind.

Later, when Roger was home but Elizabeth and David were still out, Victoria mustered up the nerve to go and retrieve the box. But when she looked for it, it was gone.

…

On the night the Old House was finally completed, Barnabas wandered through its rooms for hours in a kind of aimless ecstasy. He could hardly believe there was nothing left to do. Every detail was in place, right down to the silver candlesticks and Oriental rugs. Everything was authentic, immaculate, resplendent: a perfect replica of the Joshua Collins home, prior to 1790.

Eight months it had taken! Eight months of hard physical work, of tireless haggling, of meticulous ordering and arranging. And it was totally worth it.

He could not get enough of it. The Georgian furniture of polished walnut, the priceless Ruckers harpsichord in the drawing room, the leather-bound antique editions that filled the library shelves . . . they were all so beloved, so familiar. Surrounded by these tangible symbols of the life he had once known, he felt at home again—_human_ again—for the first time in ages.

The night was warm, and the scent of honeysuckle drifted in through the open windows. With his eyes closed, he could almost believe that it was a summer afternoon of the old days. His mother and father were just in the next room, he told himself. Any minute now, little Sarah might come running in from the nursery and give him a kiss. And if he looked out the window, would he not see Jeremiah in his shirtsleeves, teaching young Daniel how to box?

He opened his eyes, and the illusion vanished. It would always be night for him, even here. And the phantoms he had conjured of his loved ones were phantoms only; their real selves were in heaven, if such a place existed. Never here.

But there was Victoria Winters. She was still foremost in his heart, as she had always been. And she was within his reach. To bring the girl he loved into this house—_that_ dream, at least, could come true.

At the first glimmer of dawn, he went to wake Willie. "Run over to Mrs. Johnson today and see if we can get some flowers for the entrance hall. And make sure there's a fire laid in the drawing room tonight. I'm having company."

Willie sat up, looking dazed. "Company?"

"Yes. Do you need me to write that down?"

"What company?"

He hesitated for an instant, not knowing why. "The Collinses' tutor."

"Oh," said Willie. "You mean Miss Winters."

"Yes. I'm going downstairs now."

"Miss Winters is nice."

"Yes. Good day, Willie."

"Barnabas, sir . . ."

"What is it?" He couldn't keep the impatience out of his voice. Already a ray of sunlight, thin as gossamer, was coming in through the curtains. "I really have to go downstairs now."

"Barnabas, sir, don't bring Miss Winters here."

He sighed. "Why not?"

"She's nice," Willie repeated. As he spoke, he absentmindedly touched one of the scars on his forearm. "I don't want nothing—bad—to happen . . ."

For a moment Barnabas was possessed with a sudden, seething rage. _How dare you even think that I would harm her!_ He ought to wring Willie's insolent neck for that. He actually moved forward to do it; the only thing that checked him was that thread of sunlight falling in the way. Horrified at himself, he gripped his cane and forced himself to calm down.

"Nothing bad _will_ happen, if you do as you're told," he said with asperity. "Good day, Willie."

Trembling, he went downstairs to the dark safety of his coffin. What had come over him, that he should almost kill a man—and poor Willie Loomis, of all men!—for nothing?

The answer came presently in the form of a tortured, ravening cry that welled up from his own throat, a cry he could not stifle or shut out. Blood. He needed human blood. He had gone far too long without it. Lately he had been pushing the limit, he knew; in his zeal to finish work on the house, he had been ignoring the depth of his thirst, trusting in his self-control. And even in his worst moments, it had never seemed possible that he might harm someone he cared about. Never until now. . . .

Yet just as strong as the thirst, and more painful still, was his longing to see Victoria again. In his last moments of consciousness before the sun was fully up, he strove desperately to convince himself that he _could _see her tonight, that nothing "bad" would happen. To admit that possibility would be to admit that the good in him wasn't strong enough to control the evil. And if that were true, God forbid, he would have to stop seeing her—and then what? All that was good and human in him, all that remained of the man he had once been, was bound up in his love for her. With a shudder he contemplated losing her (again), and realized it would result in the loss of himself: the final degeneration from man to fiend.

He could not give in. Not yet.

He had to last the night.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Victoria returned from the public library to find Collinwood ominously quiet. The family, who were usually having dinner at about this time, were nowhere to be seen. The dining room was empty, and there was no sign in the kitchen that dinner had been finished or even started.

She made herself a sandwich, but she was so tense with dread that she could hardly eat it. Something must have happened, something bad enough to upset the family's rigid routine. And that could only be something to do with David.

Presently she heard a door slam upstairs, followed by the strains of Kerli's "Love Is Dead" at full blast. So Carolyn was home, at least. Then she heard footsteps coming down the stairs, and Elizabeth appeared in the kitchen, dabbing at her red-rimmed eyes with a handkerchief. "Hello, Victoria."

"What's wrong?"

"It's David. As usual."

"Is he okay?"

"He's not hurt." She shrugged, as if that were the best that could be said. "I just don't know what to do with that boy. Or Carolyn either. I really don't."

Elizabeth wandered distractedly from the room, and Victoria went upstairs to talk to Carolyn. She knocked at the door, got no response, and then spoke as loudly as she dared over the music: "Carolyn, it's me. Are you okay?"

The volume dropped to a reasonable level, and the door opened. Victoria saw that Carolyn, too, had been crying, and was now grimly trying to cover the damage with makeup. She had just sprayed on perfume as well, and the whole room smelled like a Hot Topic store.

"Did Mom tell you what he did this time?"

"No, she didn't."

"You remember that dress I bought last week?"

Victoria nodded. It was a daring Mandarin-style dress of aquamarine silk. Carolyn always showed Victoria her clothing purchases in an effort to get her interested in fashion.

"Look." Carolyn went over to a garbage bag in the corner of the room and pulled the dress partway out. It was ruined, slashed to tatters and splotched with blood-red stains, as if someone had been brutally murdered in it.

"Oh my gosh!"

"I know. And you know what the best part is? He swears he didn't do it—and they believe him."

"What!"

"Yeah, right? So I get after him, and Mom and Roger are all, 'It's not his fault, leave him alone.' And I'm like, 'Then whose fault is it? There's only one psycho in this house!' And then David starts crying. So now _I'm_ in trouble."

She flopped down on the bed. Victoria sat down beside her and awkwardly patted her arm, trying not to look at the grisly remains of the dress.

"And it's _always_ like this. They always take his side, and he just gets worse and worse. They never believe me."

"I do," said Victoria, wincing. She had tried to tell Roger and Elizabeth her own concerns about David, but it never did any good. Elizabeth would just get teary-eyed and drift away, and Roger would coldly remind her that she was David's tutor, not his therapist. "I've seen it too."

"What am I supposed to do?"

"I don't know. That's the thing—I don't think they know either. David's a sick kid . . ."

"Oh, he's sick all right. Sicker than even they know. He's an evil brat." She stared morosely at the wall. "I hate him. One of these days I'm gonna kill him, unless he kills me first."

Victoria gulped. Something in Carolyn's voice was just a shade too sincere.

"What do you mean, he's sicker than they know?"

"Well, you know. He can be . . . weird . . . when you're alone with him. He's never like that when the others are around. With them he's sort of normal. But with me, he's not like a kid at all. He's like a really, really creepy adult. And he talks to me like _I'm_ someone else, too. Half the time, he calls me Millicent."

"That _is_ weird."

"I know. And there was one time . . ." She trailed off reluctantly.

"What? What did he do?"

"He told me how I was going to die."

She took a deep breath and went on. "He said, 'You'll disappear, and your family won't miss you. Days will go by, and they won't even bother to search for you. They'll find you by accident, out in the woods—a rotting corpse. Why, the only way they'll recognize you is by your pretty hair. And they'll be glad you're gone, Millicent. They don't care about you. They never did.'" Carolyn choked back a sob. "He really freaked me out."

Victoria could not speak. It was too ghastly, too vicious a thing to dismiss with a well-meaning word. _What kind of kid does stuff like that?_ she wondered helplessly for the hundredth time. His choice of words, too, struck her as odd. He had said "your family" and "they," as if he weren't talking about his own family. As if he didn't count himself among them.

Or—strange, horrible thought!—as if he weren't speaking his own words, but someone else's. . . .

"Geez." Carolyn shook her head vigorously and got up. "I've got to get out. If my mom asks, tell her I've gone to Maggie's."

Victoria went to her own room, taking care as usual to lock the door. She did not know what to think or do. She tried to distract herself by reading a book, but she could not lose the cold, sick feeling that pervaded her.

A knock on the door made her jump. "Miss Winters," said Roger's voice, "David wants to talk to you."

She opened the door partway. Roger stood there with David, looking tired and defeated. How old he was starting to look!—he was barely forty, yet he seemed to have aged years in the past few months. His hair was noticeably gray now, and there were lines in his face that had not been there last fall. Victoria thought involuntarily of all the Collins men who had died young, and she shivered.

"Alone, Dad?" said David. "Please?"

Roger sighed. "Is that all right, Miss Winters?"

All of her instincts screamed in protest, but she said, unbelievably, "Okay."

When Roger had withdrawn to his studio, David looked up at Victoria with wide, earnest eyes. "I didn't do it, Miss Winters."

"David . . ."

"I didn't! I swear!"

"Then who did?"

"_She_ did." His voice dropped to a whisper. "The French lady."

"What French lady?"

"I'm not making her up. She's real. She follows me around, and she makes me do and say things—bad things."

Victoria sighed in despair. This was way, way out of her depth. "Have you told your therapist about this French lady?"

"No, I can't! And you can't tell anyone! I'm not crazy, and I'm not lying, I swear. Listen. Can't you hear her?"

Victoria started to speak, then stopped abruptly. She _did_ hear something—a faint stirring in the dark hallway, like the rustle of silk, or the beating of wings. It was not imagination, and it was none of the usual sounds that an old house made. As she listened with growing dread, the sound became a human voice, soft and raspy. It was speaking French.

"David, _how are you doing that?_"

"It's not me!" He shrank against the wall. "It's her. It's always her."

Trembling with fear and anger, Victoria reached out and switched on the hall light. At the same time, the voice fell silent. She didn't know what she expected to see—a tape recorder, possibly?—but there was nothing there.

"David, this isn't funny! What's going on?"

"You _can_ hear her," he whispered. "I thought so . . . I knew it couldn't be just me."

Victoria looked down the empty hallway, then back at David, and suddenly she could not bear to stay in the house another minute. She fled down the stairs and out the front door, anxious to get away from . . . whatever it was.

A dark cloud had rolled over the moon, and she couldn't see anything past the house's security lights. She ran blindly down the driveway, through the gate—and straight into the startled arms of Barnabas Collins.

"Victoria! My dear girl, what is the matter?"

"Oh!" Her arms went up around his neck, and she clung to him. Then she quickly released him, her face burning with embarrassment. "I'm sorry."

"You're shaking."

"It's nothing. I'm okay. I'm sorry."

"What has happened?"

His voice was full of tender concern. For a moment she considered telling him everything. But she didn't know how to begin, or, for that matter, how to conclude. What was the least frightening explanation for all of this? That her employer's son was a sociopathic monster? That Collinwood was haunted by a malevolent ghost? Or that she, Victoria, was starting to lose her mind?

"Nothing. I just need to get out for a little while. Please, can we go somewhere? I don't care where."

Barnabas took her hand. "Come with me."

To her surprise, they immediately turned off the main road and into the woods. He held onto her hand and walked slowly enough for her to keep up, but he never once hesitated or lost his footing on the uneven ground. Without so much as a flashlight, he seemed to know perfectly where he was going.

"Um—where _are_ we going?" she asked, forgetting that she did not care.

Barnabas looked at her. His eyes gleamed in the darkness like an animal's. "You'll see."

Soon they arrived at the Old House, and Victoria caught her breath at the sight of it. The windows glowed with candlelight, faintly illuminating the ivy-clad walls and the trim, pretty garden. It was like a scene from a fairy tale, magically suspended in time; the illusion of stepping into the past was so complete that Victoria actually looked down at her T-shirt and jeans to remind herself what century she was in. For the moment, her fears and worries were forgotten.

"Wow, you did all this? It's beautiful!"

"I had help," he replied modestly, smiling. "Come, I'll show you the inside."

In the entrance hall, Willie Loomis was arranging roses in a porcelain vase. "Thank you, Willie," said Barnabas. "You may leave us now."

"Yes, sir. Um—hi, Miss Winters."

"Hi, Willie." She smiled at him.

"The house looks real nice, don't it?"

"It looks wonderful."

"I helped, you know."

"You've done a great job."

Barnabas cleared his throat. "Willie, don't you have some things to take care of in the cellar?"

"Um, right, sir. Sorry, sir." Nodding and smiling, Willie edged his way down the stairs.

"Now then." Barnabas turned to Victoria, his eyes shining. "There's so much I want to show you—and one thing in particular!—but I'll save that for last. Come."

Hand in hand, they walked through each exquisitely laid-out room. It was far better than a museum, where all these lovely, imperishable things would have been displayed in glass cases or behind velvet ropes, accompanied by stiff little printed explanations. Far better to see them this way, as part of a home, in the company of the person who actually owned, used, and loved them. (Barnabas even played that gorgeous old harpsichord, and played it rather well!)

She listened, spellbound, as he unfolded to her the history of the family who had once lived here. Joshua, Naomi, Barnabas, Jeremiah, Daniel, Sarah: they were as real to him as flesh and blood, and he described them so vividly that Victoria could almost feel their presence in the house. The atmosphere of their loves, joys, and sorrows hung about it still; after all these years, it was still a home—it felt like a home, in a way that the Great House did not.

"There's just one room left," Barnabas said at last. "When the Collinses moved into the Great House, they left something here—something I was amazed to find. That's what I want to show you."

He opened the door and she entered. It was a girl's bedroom decorated in a poignantly feminine style: white lace curtains, delicate silver accents here and there, antique furniture upholstered in lavender brocade. "Whose room was this?"

"Hers," said Barnabas, pointing to a picture on the wall. Victoria looked. And looked again.

It was a portrait of a young girl, shining out of an ancient rococo frame—a girl with wide hazel eyes and clear, pale skin. Her dark hair hung in long ringlets over her shoulders. She wore a dark green gown, pearl earrings, and a little gold cross on a ribbon around her neck. The hairstyle, gown, and jewelry were all from a bygone age; but the face—eerily, unmistakably—was Victoria's own.

"How . . . ?" She suddenly found it difficult to speak. "Who was she?"

"Her name was Josette du Prés," Barnabas said quietly. "She was born in France, raised on the island of Martinique. Betrothed to Barnabas Collins."

"Betrothed? Not married?"

He shook his head.

"What was she like?"

"Sweet. Innocent. Full of life. And beautiful, as you can see."

"What happened to her?"

He sighed. She could tell he was reluctant to speak of it, but she still waited for his answer. She wanted terribly to know—_needed_ to know—what had become of this girl.

"What happened between her and Barnabas, no one knows." His voice was sad and faraway. "But in 1790—the year the Great House was completed, and the year they were to be married—Barnabas sailed for England, and Josette jumped to her death from Widow's Hill."

A shiver went through her at his words.

"The Collinses left her portrait here all those years ago. I suppose they couldn't bear to be reminded of her. And they left this, too." He picked up a small silver casket from the dressing-table. On its oval lid, rimmed with jewels, were two sets of entwined initials—B.C. and J. du P.—and the year 1790. "This must have been a betrothal gift. Listen."

He opened the lid, and a tinkling melody broke out. "Allemande in C major," he laughed softly. "Can you believe the damned thing still works?"

Victoria laughed too, and at the same time her eyes stung with tears. It was so sad—and beautiful—and horrible—she hardly knew how to react. Strange that she should feel such a tender connection to this girl, who had lived and died hundreds of years ago, merely because of a chance resemblance. (It _was_ chance, of course. What else could it be?) Still, whatever the reason, she could not bring herself to look at the portrait anymore.

Barnabas set the music box down on the dressing-table. Gently he drew her close to him. "Tell me what you're thinking."

"I—don't know." She shuddered; his hands were cold. "I don't know. I don't know."

"Look at me."

His eyes were luminous, with something in them that warmed and thrilled her. She could not look away; she almost could not breathe. At last she was seeing the real Barnabas, the intense and passionate side that he had been holding back until now. This was the moment she had been dreading—and longing for—since they had first met.

"Don't be afraid, sweetheart," he whispered. "We're together now. Nothing else matters."

He kissed her forehead, her cheek, her lips. A sweet trancelike state came over her; she was kissing him back, hardly aware of what she was doing, with an ardor that matched his own. He pressed his mouth against the pulse of her throat, hard enough to hurt, and she gave a little gasp.

Abruptly he pulled away. He strode to the other side of the room and stood facing the wall, his hand against his mouth. Victoria could see that he was trembling.

"What is it?"

He looked at her. For a moment, by some weird trick of the candlelight, his eyes looked not blue, but red. Then he quickly averted his face. "I'm sorry," he said chokingly, and left the room.

She followed. "Barnabas, what's wrong?"

Ignoring her, he shouted from the top of the stairs, "_Willie!_"

Willie bounded upstairs with surprising alacrity, as if he had been waiting behind the cellar door. "Barnabas, sir?"

"Take Miss Winters home. Now."

"Yes, sir."

At the word _home,_ Victoria went cold all over. She dared not think of what might await her there. "Oh no, please. Not yet."

"Come on, Miss Winters," Willie urged under his breath.

"Please, Barnabas, don't send me home! At least come with me!"

Barnabas went over to the window. With his back to them, he said coldly, "You heard me. Go."

Blinking back tears of hurt, Victoria followed Willie out the door. She looked back to see Barnabas still standing at the window, watching her. Then the house was obscured by the woods, and he was lost in darkness.

…

The candles went out slowly, one by one. In his misery, he didn't notice until the room was almost completely dark. He turned around, piercingly aware that he was not alone.

"Show yourself," he said.

His eyes were drawn to a gleam of moonlight on the wall. As he watched, it grew brighter, gathering shape and substance, until a human form stepped out of the shadows. A young woman, dark, comely, wearing a white lace cap and a servant's gown. A woman with eyes like live coals, burning with hate, staring back at him.

_Angélique._

His throat went dry with fear.

"You don't look pleased to see me, _mon cher,_" she said silkily. He gritted his teeth.

"You've been here all along, haven't you?"

"No, not _here._" Angélique gave a low chuckle. That dreadful, cruel laugh of hers! "What do I care for an empty house? It belongs to the dead. My business has always been with the living—and with you."

"The living . . . ?"

In a flash of horror, he understood. She had never left Collinwood; she had simply followed the Collinses to the Great House. She had been haunting them all this time, plaguing them with her devilish magic. And he had not known, had not seen; he had retreated to the past and hidden there like a coward, oblivious to his flesh and blood in the present. What a fool he had been to think they were ever free of her, even for a moment! Who knew what torments she had inflicted on the intervening generations?—or what evil she was plotting even now?

Angélique, divining his thoughts, laughed harder, and the sound filled him with rage.

"_Why?_" he shouted._ "_Why, you witch? What more of vengeance could you want? After what you did to me—and Josette, and everyone in your own time that you drove to madness or the grave—was it not enough?"

"No," she replied.

She came nearer. Her footsteps made no sound on the floor. "You know what I want, Barnabas," she said. "I want your heart—and your soul. With every generation that passes, and you continue to deny me, the Collins family owes me a soul. I'm only taking what's rightfully mine."

A cry of anguish burst from his throat. "How long must this go on?"

"You can end it now, if you wish." She smiled sweetly and laid her fingertips against his cheek. Her ghostly touch made his skin crawl. "Say the word, _mon cher._ Your love—freely given—and the curse is broken."

He opened his mouth to utter the lie. But the image of Victoria Winters rose unbidden to his mind, and he could not say it. In the silence, he heard the echo of the words he had spoken to Angélique all those years ago:

_As long as she is on this earth, I will never love another._

Angélique's smile turned twisted and ugly. She backed away from him with a hiss. "_Her!_ Always her! Then you leave me no choice."

"Stay away from her!"

He hurled himself at Angélique, and she vanished with a trill of mocking laughter. Her voice reverberated in his head: "Protect her from me, Barnabas, if you can. But who will protect her from _you?_"

Then there was silence, and he was alone once more.

He stood there in the dark, trembling with helpless anger and fear, until he could bear it no longer. A savage thirst took possession of him, and he went out, slamming the door behind him, in search of the only sustenance that could give him peace.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Victoria couldn't sleep.

She lay cold and still in her bed, unable to relax. Every random noise in the night filled her with dread, and she dared not open her eyes lest she see—_something_ (David? something worse?)—in the darkness. And when her imagination wasn't tormenting her, her thoughts returned despairingly, obsessively, to Barnabas Collins.

What had come over him? To kiss her like that one minute, and then send her away the next—it didn't make sense. She knew that he had feelings for her; restrained as he had been from the beginning, he had never tried to hide the fact. If for some reason he didn't want things to go too far, why couldn't he say so? Or was he just toying with her?

At length, giving up the attempt to sleep, she sat up and turned on her lamp. It was around two o'clock in the morning. The house was quiet, and there was nothing sinister to be seen. "Stupid," she grumbled as she got up to use the bathroom. A grown woman afraid of the dark.

She patted her feverish face with a damp washcloth. For a moment she studied her reflection in the mirror: the tangled hair and pale skin, the violet shadows under her eyes, the T-shirt and track pants that she wore as pajamas. She recognized herself, the same as ever, and yet it was as if she were looking at a stranger.

"Josette du Prés."

The name, spoken aloud, had a frightening potency. Feeling like a kid playing Bloody Mary, she quickly turned away from the mirror.

On the way back to bed she stopped, suddenly alert and trembling. Barnabas was nearby; she knew this instinctively. Barnabas was nearby, and he wanted her.

She looked out the window and saw nothing. But he was _there_ (how was she so certain of this?) and she felt so intensely that he wanted her, it was as if he were calling her name. At once she started to go to him. It did not occur to her that she had any choice. There was no thought, no desire in her mind except to go to him.

And then, just as suddenly, the feeling was gone.

Bewildered, she looked out the window again, but still she could see nothing. Was he there, or wasn't he? Had she heard him calling her or not?

_I really am losing my mind,_ she thought.

…

At around seven, she dragged herself out of bed and dressed by the pale half-light that seeped in through the curtains. Sore and groggy from her restless night, she was thinking of nothing now but coffee, and maybe one of Mrs. Johnson's maple-hazelnut bars. She could smell them baking.

As she went out in the hall, she noticed that Carolyn's door was ajar and the room was empty. What was she doing up at this hour? And moving so quietly that Victoria hadn't heard her—that was a first. Then she realized that she had not heard Carolyn come home last night.

Elizabeth was in the breakfast room, gazing out the window at the rain beginning to fall. She smiled wanly at Victoria; it was apparent that she hadn't had any sleep, either.

"Where's Carolyn?"

"Asleep, I imagine. She's never up this early on a Saturday."

"She's not in her room. Didn't she come home last night?"

Elizabeth's eyes widened. "Did she go out?"

"She went to Maggie's. I'm sorry, I thought I told you."

"Oh, well, I'm sure she's fine. I'd better give Sam Evans a call, though."

As Elizabeth rose to reach the phone, they heard the front door open and a gust of wind blow in. Victoria hurried to the parlor with Elizabeth close behind—and froze in horror at the rain-dripping, bloodstained apparition in the doorway.

"_Carolyn!_" Elizabeth rushed forward and caught her daughter as she swayed. "Victoria, get Roger and Mrs. Johnson! Hurry!"

Victoria obeyed, glancing back at Carolyn as Elizabeth lowered her onto the settee. Her face was deathly white, her eyes glassy. Blood had run down her chest from a black-crusted wound on her neck.

The rest of the morning was a nightmarish blur. The Collinses called the police, locked up the house, and rushed Carolyn to the hospital. Only when they were all sitting rigidly in the hospital waiting room did it fully dawn on Victoria what had happened, and only then did she feel the chill of reaction, like the aftermath of a car crash. She folded her arms tightly to keep from shaking.

A sudden burst of music made everyone jump. It was the Muse ringtone on Carolyn's cell phone, coming from inside her purse, which Elizabeth was holding. She took it out and answered it in a shaky voice. "Hello, Mrs. Stoddard speaking. . . . Yes. . . . You _what?_"

She went out into the hall for a few minutes. When she came back, she took out a bit of paper and a pen and scribbled down some notes, with more energy and alacrity than Victoria had ever seen her devote to any task before.

"Who was that?" Roger asked.

"Some woman in New York. She got a call from Carolyn's phone at about two in the morning. It was right when—" Elizabeth choked back a sob. "She says she overheard what happened."

"New York? Who would Carolyn be calling in New York?"

"Her name is Julia Hoffman. I don't know her; Carolyn probably dialed her up by mistake. But she gave me her cell phone number. She's coming to Maine for a few days anyway, she says, so if there's anything she can do . . ."

"Two in the morning?" Victoria's voice came out high and strained. "That's when it was?"

"That's what she says."

Victoria fell to biting her nails. She had been awake at two o'clock that morning. She had looked out her window and seen nothing. But she had felt a presence so strongly. . . .

No. It couldn't have been.

She looked out the window at the rain streaming down, and shuddered to think who—or what—was out there.

…

In the airport restroom Julia Hoffman washed her hands, then washed them again, annoyed at the automatic faucet that only dribbled out a little at a time. In the midst of her compulsive scrubbing, she thought of Lady Macbeth, and smiled grimly in spite of herself.

She dried her hands, replaced the clip in her faded brown hair, and examined her sleep-deprived face in the mirror. The fluorescent light was not kind, and every blotch and wrinkle of her forty-seven years was mercilessly apparent. She had not put on makeup or even washed her face that morning—just grabbed an overnight bag and run out the door, anxious to get to Collinsport before anything else happened.

Because she knew, already, what was happening. And she knew she was the only one who could stop it.

At two o'clock that morning, she had gotten a call. When she saw the unfamiliar number on the caller ID, her first thought was to let it ring. But some instinct made her pick it up.

"Hoffman," she said tersely.

"Julia?"

It was a man's voice, barely audible—a voice she had not heard in many years. But she recognized it instantly, and her heart began to race.

"Where are you?"

"Collinsport." There was a noise as if he was gulping, struggling to breathe. Was he crying? "It's happening again."

Then he hung up.

Frantically she dialed the number and waited, but he didn't pick up again. It rang four times before a perky voice said, "This is Carolyn. Leave a message."

No! Julia slammed the receiver down, trembling. _Barnabas, what have you done?_

Immediately she got online and bought a ticket for the next available flight to Maine. She had to find out if he had killed that girl (and if he hadn't, what was he doing with her phone?)—had to find out if he was in trouble, if anyone in Collinsport knew the truth about him, and if there was any way to protect him. But she had to track him down first.

It was several hours before she summoned up the nerve to call that number again, this time from a pay phone at the airport, and it was the poor girl's mother who answered. From her distraught, somewhat jumbled account, Julia was able to piece together what had happened and to come up with a plausible story of her own. "I got a call from this number, asking for help. . . . I just got a feeling that I should call back. . . . I'm a doctor, you see, and when I get that feeling I can't ignore it—I just have to do _something._ . . . If there's anything I can do to help . . ."

It wasn't a great story, but it was mostly true, and it gave her an excuse to get involved. And at the very least, it was a relief to know the girl wasn't dead.

But if she regained consciousness—if she spoke— No, Julia couldn't rest until she knew Barnabas was safe.

As she stood before the mirror now, thinking of him, her fingers strayed to the red scarf she always wore—the one eccentric item in her otherwise plain, neutral wardrobe—and tugged it down. There were two small scars on her neck, faded but still visible. She touched them gingerly, as if she expected them to still hurt after all these years. Most of the time, she did not feel them or think of them at all. But there was still a memory of pain there . . . a lingering connection to _him._

_I'll find you,_ she vowed silently.

…

"Thank you for coming, Miss—er—Doctor—"

"Julia," she said warmly, extending a hand for the old lady to shake. If it was a breach of etiquette to shake hands with the maid, the maid didn't seem to mind. She grasped Julia's hand gratefully, blinking back a few tears, and Julia smiled. "I just had to come and see if I could help."

As Mrs. Johnson led her into the parlor, she looked around with secret, devouring curiosity. So this was the Collins estate! And these people were related to Barnabas Collins! She could sort of see it. The man's mouth and jaw had the same grim set, only more pronounced; in middle age, Barnabas's mouth would have looked just like that. And the woman, who looked as if a strong wind might blow her away, had beautiful hands with long fingers like his. And the boy . . . what a handsome child he was! He could have been Barnabas's little brother.

As Julia studied his face, David looked steadily back at her as if he knew what she was thinking. Then he did a strange thing. He winked.

"How is Carolyn?" she asked, dragging her gaze away from the boy.

"Better," said Roger. "She's awake."

"Has she said anything?"

"Not much. Nothing about—what happened."

"It's possible that she won't remember," said Elizabeth. "She has a concussion. When she—when it happened, she was knocked down, and her head hit the pavement."

"Ah."

"We asked her if she remembered calling you, but she doesn't."

"I see." Julia frowned slightly. "May I see her? Perhaps if I talk to her, she'll remember something."

"Of course."

Elizabeth took her into Carolyn's room. The shades were drawn, and Carolyn lay in bed with her eyes closed, listening to her iPod. Even in semidarkness, her resemblance to Barnabas was unmistakable—the same pale skin and high-bred features—and when Elizabeth turned on the lamp, causing her to flinch and look up, Julia's heart smote her. She had his eyes.

"Who're you?" Her voice was barely more than a croak.

"I'm Dr. Hoffman, sweetie." Julia turned to Elizabeth and said as gently as possible, "Could you give us a minute?"

Elizabeth hesitated, then withdrew. The door clicked shut.

"How are you feeling?"

"I've been better," Carolyn said dryly.

"Head achy? Sensitive to light?"

"Yeah."

Julia peeled back the edge of the gauze patch on Carolyn's neck. The wounds were ragged. He had worried her with his teeth, like a dog attacking a badger. She winced as she put the bandage back.

"Do you remember what happened to you?"

"I didn't at first, but I think I'm starting to."

"Tell me."

Carolyn took a deep breath. "I was walking home from my friend Maggie's. It was late—she offered to give me a ride, but I thought I'd be okay. I was almost home, just outside the gate, and then . . ."

She stopped.

"Go on."

"I saw him. I remember now, I saw him."

"Who? Did you recognize him?"

Carolyn nodded slowly, her hand over her mouth. "It was Barnabas, our cousin. He was just standing there, staring up at the house, like— It was weird. And then he turned and looked at me." She shuddered. "That's all I remember."

"Your cousin?" Julia raised one eyebrow. "Where can I find him?"

"At the Old House. And please, you've got to tell Victoria."

"Victoria?"

"She likes him. She doesn't know . . ." Suddenly Carolyn struggled to sit up. "Where is she? Is she okay? You've got to keep her away from him!"

"I will," Julia promised hastily. "I'll take care of it. Trust me. Now calm down."

She reached into her bag and took out a faceted crystal suspended from a length of twine. "Look at this, please."

Carolyn eyed it warily. "What's that for?"

"It's a little exercise to help you relax." The crystal turned slowly, winking little rainbow shadows from side to side. "You're safe now. Everything's going to be all right. Just focus on this. . . ."

…

Some time later Julia tiptoed out of the room, closing the door softly behind her.

"Well?" said Elizabeth, who had been waiting anxiously in the hall.

"She's okay," said Julia. "She's sleeping now. But I'm afraid she still doesn't remember anything."

Elizabeth sighed. "Well, thank you for coming anyway. If there are any changes, I'll let you know."

On her way to the front door, her foot struck a pencil box lying on the floor. "Oh, David!" Elizabeth snapped. "I'm sorry, doctor. He doesn't usually leave his things lying around. . . . Where _is_ that boy?"

Elizabeth left the room, and out of curiosity Julia opened the box. Inside she saw a paintbrush, an earring, a lock of blond hair (undoubtedly Carolyn's), and a folded-up picture of some palm trees. As she examined these things, her heartbeat quickened and her fingertips grew cold with mingled excitement and dismay.

Sympathetic magic! Someone in this house was performing witchcraft. She thought of the boy, and somehow she knew that he was at the bottom of this—knew, too, that he had intended for her to open the box. But why?

She put the box down, drew her scarf a little tighter around her throat, and headed out to the Old House. The sun was low in the sky, and she had to find Barnabas before she could start looking for answers.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Victoria spent the afternoon at the public library researching the Collinsport vampire. She knew how upset Roger would be if she brought home books on the subject or used one of his computers to look it up online, so she made the most of her time here. Every resource the library had to offer, from microfilmed newspapers to that infamous _Haunted History_ episode, she scoured for clues that might help make sense of what had happened to Carolyn.

It seemed strange to her that no one had so much as breathed the word _vampire_ in connection with the incident. Not that Victoria believed for one second that there was any such thing. But really, how could they _not_ be thinking it? A nighttime assault, a neck wound, a tremendous loss of blood (and a mysterious lack of bloodstains or puddles at the scene)—it fit in too neatly with the town's mythology. Whoever was responsible had probably grown up with the stories, read the same books and articles that Victoria was looking at now. If there was something here that might lead to identifying the attacker, she was determined to find it.

She was also determined not to think about Barnabas Collins. She had not seen or heard from him since the night he had kissed her, and she didn't know what to conclude other than that he no longer wanted anything to do with her. Earlier that day she had gone to the Old House to see him, only to be told by a strangely furtive and uneasy Willie Loomis that "Barnabas ain't here."

"Where is he? Do you know when he'll be back?"

"Dunno. Not for a long time," he said, shutting the door in her face.

The only sensible thing to do, she told herself, was to forget about him. But it was nearly impossible. The harder she tried to focus on the texts in front of her, the more she was conscious of _him_—as if he were present, somehow, in all these layers of history. And every time her mind wandered for even an instant, she found herself back at the Old House, alone with him in Josette's candlelit chamber. . . . How she longed to return to that moment, to set right whatever had gone wrong.

Sighing, she closed the last book in her pile of sources. As she gathered them up, one of them fell noisily to the floor—a book she didn't remember picking up in the first place. The cover was blank, and the title page said simply _A History of the Collins Family._ It had cheap brown binding, no copyright page, and no decimal number on the spine.

She hesitated—it was growing late, and she had no intention of walking home in the dark—but curiosity got the better of her. She turned to the chapter entitled "The Events of 1790," just to see if it would tell her anything she didn't already know.

"Barnabas's unexpected departure for England was the first of many blows for the Collins family in that year," she read. "In June, shortly before Jeremiah was to marry his orphaned cousin, Millicent Collins—"

_Millicent._

Victoria froze. That name had no right to be there. She had looked at the Collins family tree a dozen times, and there was no Millicent on it. Nor was there any mention of a Millicent in the other sources.

"—she disappeared from her bedroom in the night. It was commonly believed that she had gone to join Barnabas and the two had married in secret."

_That's not what happened,_ said a voice in her head like a serpent's whisper. _You know what really happened, don't you?_

She closed her eyes—tried _not_ to know what had happened to Millicent Collins—but she could not shut out the image that David had used to terrorize Carolyn: a dead girl rotting in the woods, unrecognizable save for her long blond hair. It was so horribly vivid, she felt as if she had actually seen it.

"Joshua Collins had her name stricken from the family Bible and forbade his neighbors to mention her ever again. But he could not stave off the tragedies that were still to come. Only days later, Jeremiah shot himself—an incident his father reported as a 'firearms accident'— and Barnabas's jilted fiancée, Josette du Prés, threw herself from Widow's Hill."

Victoria winced. She skimmed over the page, already familiar with the Collins family's litany of losses: the two suicides, the scarlet fever that had taken little Sarah's life and nearly taken Daniel's as well, the emotional breakdown that had sent Naomi Collins to an insane asylum. How could so many hideous things happen to one family in one year?

"During these troubled times, most of the residents of Collinsport rallied behind the Collins family," the book went on. "But certain dark rumors persisted. Rumors of murder and of witchcraft. Rumors of a hidden cellar beneath the Collins family crypt, once used to store munitions during the Revolution, now hiding the family's most terrible secret. And one rumor, hardly more than a whisper: that Barnabas Collins had never left for England at all."

Victoria slammed the book shut. It was all lies, she told herself. Sensationalist garbage. She left it on a random shelf and hurried out of the library, her heart pounding with a fear she dared not put into words.

As she approached Collinwood, she saw David sneaking out through the gate. He paused and looked right at her, as if daring her to follow him, and then darted into the woods.

"David!"

She chased after him, stumbling over roots and rocks. Before long she lost sight of him in the thickening shadows, and she looked around wildly, fighting down panic. "David!"

"Over here," he called at last.

Following his voice, she came out of the trees and was startled to find herself on a precipice. Between the twilight sky above and the slate-dark sea below, there was nothing but empty space, a sudden and treacherous drop.

"They used to call this place Widow's Hill," said David.

Victoria shivered. It looked familiar somehow, and not just because she had been reading about Josette. She had been here before, in dreams . . . had breathed this air, felt this ground beneath her feet, just before the sickening sensation of falling. She leaned over the edge, repelled and yet fascinated by the jagged rocks and roiling waters below.

"Want to know how it happens?" he whispered.

Victoria did not want to know, but she could not shut out his voice. It was a soft, raspy voice, not a child's at all.

"You're running as hard as you can, tripping over your bloodstained dress—running from a demon in the form of a man. He's following you, gaining on you—oh, he's almost upon you!—and then you jump."

He made a grotesque plosive noise. "Shattered on those rocks. Blood and brains everywhere. There'll be hardly enough left of you to bury. But don't worry, _chou-chou,_" he laughed, a trace of French accent creeping into his voice. "You won't feel a thing."

Something in Victoria snapped. She looked into David's face and saw what she had never quite seen before—what she had been afraid to see: the alien personality superimposed on him like a mask, distorting and darkening his features. For the first time she could clearly see the _thing_ speaking through him.

"Who are you?" she demanded.

The _thing_ smiled. The eyes, glowing with hate, burned into hers. "We'll meet again soon enough," it said.

And then, just as suddenly, it was gone.

David blinked, swayed, lost his balance. She quickly reached out and pulled him back from the edge. He looked up at her in frightened confusion. "Miss Winters? How did we get here?"

Victoria hugged him tightly, more to steady herself than to comfort him. She was shaking violently with a terror that had not registered until now. "It's all right," she lied in a faltering voice. "Let's go home."

…

Julia knocked at the front door of the Old House, then reached into her bag for her crucifix. She had no way of knowing what state Barnabas would be in. Even in the days of their friendship (if you could call it that), she had never been able to predict when he would suddenly turn dangerous. But that, for her, was part of his charm.

With wonder and some amusement, she reflected on the bizarre turn her life had taken when she met Barnabas Collins. Who would ever have imagined that _she,_ the eminent Dr. Hoffman, would throw away a promising career to study the occult! Julia Hoffman, Ph.D., the wunderkind of NYU's hematology division, carrying crystals and a crucifix in her bag!

Yet here she was, a world removed from her old self, from all that was safe and predictable. And she would not have gone back for anything.

Barnabas Collins, simply by being what he was, had opened new worlds to her. He had shown her the gaps in the walls of reality, turned her orderly and rational life upside down. How ironic that he had come to _her_ for help all those years ago, seeking a cure for his condition. He had had such touching faith in her ability to help him. And she had failed him. . . .

But she would not think of that. Not now.

The door finally opened a crack. "Go away," said a strange man holding an oil lamp.

"I'm here to see Barnabas."

"He don't want no visitors."

"He's expecting me."

She pushed past the man, who was evidently too surprised to resist, and went into the entrance hall. In the lamplight, the lovingly furnished room glowed with antique richness. A lump rose in her throat as she looked around. It was heartbreaking in a way, all the effort he had put into this house. And for what?

"Where is he?"

Before the man could reply, Julia heard a faint, twinkling melody coming from upstairs—a chime or a music box. She hurried up the stairs, heedless of the man's warnings: "Don't go up there! I'm telling you—just don't!"

The door at the end of the hall was partially open. It was a bedroom, aglow with candles like the shrine of a saint. And Barnabas was sitting against the wall, his body slack with despair, cradling a silver music box in his hands.

For a long moment neither of them moved. Then his eyes flickered briefly in her direction with no trace of surprise. "If you've come to kill me," he said quietly, "I suggest you get it over with."

"That's not why I'm here." Julia edged cautiously nearer. "You called me, remember?"

"I did?"

She nodded.

There was another silence. She found herself marveling, as ever, at how beautiful he was—like a fallen angel, she thought. The youthful purity of his features, the fathomless sorrow in his eyes . . . it hurt her, somehow, to look at him.

"She's dead, isn't she."

"No, Barnabas. She's fine."

The news had no effect on him. "How could I do that?" he said dully, more to himself than to her. "To my own flesh and blood . . ."

"Don't think about it. She's fine, and she won't remember anything about that night. It's all right now."

"It will never be all right." He abruptly shut the music box. "There's nothing anyone can do."

"Barnabas, let me help you. Let me try."

"Help me? As you did before?"

Julia bit her lip. _It wasn't my fault!_ she cried silently. The serum she had developed had worked. For a brief time, thanks to her, Barnabas had been able to go without blood—to stand in the sun—to see his own face in a mirror. She had had no way of knowing that the serum would suddenly stop working, or that his need for blood would reassert itself even more savagely than before. . . . The two little scars on her neck began to ache.

"Barnabas—"

"You tried," he said shortly. "You came close. You gave me my first taste of sunlight in over two centuries. I should thank you."

The bitterness in his voice belied his words. Did he think she had failed him on purpose?

"Barnabas, tell me what's going on. If you ever trusted me, trust me now."

Instead of replying, he opened the music box again and set it on the floor beside him. The twinkly, strangely maddening music started back up. Julia sighed in frustration. "On the phone, you said 'It's happening again.' What did you mean?"

"It's a curious thing," he mused, as if he didn't hear her. "Time . . . it starts and stops, and then it starts again. It goes round and round forever. The same people, the same faces, always dancing to the same tune."

"What are you talking about?"

"All of us here at Collinwood. It's the curse of the Collins family. _She_ has brought us all together, just so she can destroy us again—in the very same way she did before. There's no escaping her."

Julia sat down on the bed, her heart beating strangely. She knew he was talking about Angélique, the witch from his own time. And there was witchcraft at Collinwood now. She waited breathlessly for him to go on.

"I was a fool to come back here," he said in the oddly calm voice of despair. "I thought I could have some semblance of life in my own house, among my own people—that if I could not escape my curse, I could at least control it. When I first called on the Collinses, and was struck by the resemblance—" He stopped suddenly and bit his lip. "It should have been a warning. But at the time, it seemed to confirm that this was where I belonged. My home.

"I grew careless. I went too long without human blood. It became more and more difficult to control myself. And that night . . . Carolyn . . . when I looked down at her and saw all the blood, her golden hair, her eyes staring back at me—_my _eyes—my kin—I thought she was Cousin Millicent all over again. Cousin Millicent, the first one I ever killed. And that devilish laughter of Angélique's filled my head." He pressed his palms hard against his eyes. "Even now—even now. I can't drive it out."

"She's reliving it," Julia realized aloud. "All those things she did to your family in 1790. And she's using the boy, somehow, to make it happen. But Barnabas, Carolyn's still alive—Angélique hasn't succeeded yet. There's got to be some way we can stop her."

"How?" He looked at her with anguished, red-rimmed eyes. "If I am capable of what I did to Carolyn—to my own kin—what am I _not_ capable of? What if the next one is not so fortunate? Who will it be?"

As if in reply, a name rose unbidden to Julia's mind. Victoria. What had Carolyn said about Victoria? _You've got to keep her away from him._

"Barnabas, I have to ask." She took a deep breath. "Who is Victoria?"

His gaze wavered in momentary (guilty?) surprise. "Victoria Winters," he said reluctantly. "Of course, I knew her under a different name—before."

"Josette?"

He nodded. He knew what she was about to say, and the misery in his face was plain. She tried to speak gently, but her voice came out harsh and cold as a death sentence. "You can't see her anymore."

"I know."

"I'll make sure she leaves Collinsport."

"You do that." His tone was not exactly one of gratitude. "Now if you don't mind, I'd like to be alone."

Julia went out of the room just as Barnabas uttered a low, strangled sob. It was the loneliest sound she'd ever heard, and it brought tears to her eyes. But as she reached the bottom of the stairs, other sounds succeeded—heavy things being thrown and splintering against walls—the crashing, shattering noises of a room being torn apart.

Instinctively she started back up the stairs. Then someone seized her arm and pulled her back down, nearly knocking her to the floor. "Get out of here!" cried the wild-eyed man with the oil lamp.

She didn't need to be told again. Fumbling for the flashlight in her bag, she hurried out into the darkness. As she half-ran, half-stumbled through the woods, the night wind filled her ears like the rushing of wings.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Julia sat by the window at the Blue Whale, drumming her fingers on the tabletop. In front of her was her third cup of coffee, as well as a newspaper she made no pretense of reading. Her eyes scanned each face in the restaurant, every passerby on the street outside.

Presently a woman entered and went to the counter to order coffee. She was slender and petite, and her long dark hair hung loose, hiding her profile. She turned to look around, met Julia's gaze, and came over to the table.

She was _young_—hardly more than a kid!—and, Julia saw with a sinking heart, beautiful. Wide eyes, luminous skin, delicate bones. Not made-up, not stylish in the least, but beautiful. Heartrendingly so.

"Are you Dr. Hoffman?"

"Yes. Hi." Julia extended a hand that was suddenly cold, and Victoria shook it. "Thank you for meeting me here."

"No problem. I was kind of glad to get out of the house." There was an undertone of strain in her voice that was not lost on Julia. "What did you want to talk to me about?"

"Barnabas Collins."

Victoria blushed suddenly and deeply. That was not lost on Julia, either.

"What about him?"

"I understand you two have been seeing each other?"

"Not for awhile, actually. Why? Has something happened to him?"

"You could say that," said Julia cryptically. "Would you mind telling me just what is the nature of your relationship?"

"Is he all right? Is he in some kind of trouble?"

"Yes … and yes. I'll explain, but first I have to know what your connection is."

The girl's hazel eyes wavered. "I hardly know that myself. I wouldn't say we were dating, but we hung out from time to time, up until a few weeks ago. I haven't seen or heard from him since."

"Since the night Carolyn was attacked?"

The pretty face hardened, almost imperceptibly. She nodded.

"Do you care for him?" That question came out a little more forcefully than she meant it to.

"I don't see how that's relevant."

"All right, look." Julia leaned forward, lowering her voice. "Barnabas Collins is not who he says he is. I mean, he _is_ Barnabas Collins—but not the one you think."

Victoria's eyes narrowed slightly. "I don't follow."

"He told you he had an ancestor by that name, right? That he's the second Barnabas Collins?"

"Yeah."

"Well, he's not. There's only ever been one Barnabas Collins. He's it."

"Oh? So what is he, immortal?"

"I'm sure you've heard of the Collinsport vampire."

Victoria abruptly got up, scraping the legs of her chair noisily against the floor. "All right. We're done."

"_Sit._"

Something in her voice made Victoria freeze. Seeing that a few people were looking in her direction, she reluctantly sat back down.

"I know how it sounds, believe me. But think about it. Have you ever seen him in the daylight? Have you ever seen his reflection? Have you ever seen him eat?"

Victoria was shaking her head in disgust. "I can't believe I'm hearing this."

"Then let me show you something."

Glancing around to make sure no one else could see, Julia tugged her scarf partway down. At the sight of the old wounds, the color fled from Victoria's face.

"You're saying he did _that?_ To Carolyn, too?"

"Yes." Julia calmly rearranged her scarf. "And I have reason to believe that unless you leave town, you'll be next."

Victoria felt very sick. Her hands twisted helplessly in her lap. "Leave town?"

"As soon as possible. Don't tell anyone where you're going, or why. Just go."

"I can't just leave."

"You have to. You won't be safe until you're well away from Collinsport. In the meantime"—she reached into her bag and took out a hematite cross on a silver chain—"keep this on you. It'll be better than nothing."

Victoria took it and stared at it, uncomprehending. Slowly she shook her head again. "This … this is ridiculous. It can't be. It can't—"

"_You have to leave._" Julia's hand shot out and grabbed Victoria's wrist. "No one at Collinwood will be safe until you're gone. Listen to me, _chou-chou_—"

Julia stopped suddenly, frowning. _Now why did I say that? What does that mean?_ She looked down at her hand, which still held Victoria's wrist in a vise-like grip, and couldn't remember doing that.

Victoria stared at her for a second. Then she yanked her hand free, stalked out of the restaurant, and broke into a run.

…

She ran like a hunted creature, terrified to look back lest she see Dr. Hoffman or—something—whatever _it_ was—behind her.

It seemed impossible that the sun was still shining, that all these people on the street were obliviously going about their daily business. It made her present state of mind seem doubly nightmarish and unreal. She didn't know what to do, what to believe, whom to trust. Only one thought was clear in her mind: she had to see Barnabas.

She had to see him in the daylight.

When she reached the Old House, she was struck by the peculiar, ominous stillness about the place. The grounds, so beautifully tended when she had first been here, were starting to look neglected. She lifted the heavy knocker on the door and clanged it several times as hard as she could, but there was no answer—no sound but the dry rustle of weeds in the wind.

A flicker of movement in the window caught her eye. Not quite quickly enough, a face disappeared behind a twitching curtain.

"Willie!" she called. "Willie, I know you're in there. Let me in!"

After a brief silence, he opened the door a crack. "What do you want?"

"I need to see Barnabas."

"He ain't here."

"Where is he?"

"I dunno." The door started to close.

"Wait!"

Quite without meaning to, Victoria burst into tears. She _couldn't_ go back to Collinwood without seeing Barnabas—couldn't face the horrible suspicion that he was what Dr. Hoffman said he was. But she couldn't trust Dr. Hoffman either. She felt as if her world would collapse entirely if she wasn't allowed to see Barnabas now.

"Please, Willie, I need to see him. I just need to see him. Please help me."

Poor Willie's face contorted as if he were on the verge of tears, too. Torn between his fear of Barnabas and his distress at making Miss Winters cry, he muttered, "Now, don't—don't do that. Please, Miss Winters, stop. … All right, you can see him. But then you gotta go. And don't tell no one."

He pulled her into the house and shut the door behind her. "Be real quiet," he whispered as he lit a lamp. "He's sleeping."

She followed him down the stairs to the cellar. It was surprisingly cold; the chill seeped up from the flagstone floor and made her shiver. For a moment she just stood there, wondering dully where Barnabas was. All she could see in the smoky lamplight was an oblong trunk that looked disturbingly like—

"Go on," hissed Willie. "Hurry up."

Shaking with deep dread as well as cold, Victoria crept forward and lifted the lid.

Barnabas was in there, and he was dead. The grayish skin, the sunken eyes, the pinched look around the nose and mouth—all were unmistakable even by lamplight. A hot surge of acid rushed up from her stomach, and she pressed her hand against her mouth.

"How long has he been like this?"

"Shh!" Willie motioned wildly for her to keep her voice down. "He's always like this in the daytime. He's sleeping. He don't like folks to see him while he's sleeping."

She looked at Willie, then back at the lifeless face in the coffin. Overwhelmed with the full horror of comprehension, she fled past Willie, up the stairs, and out the front door.

…

The moon was full and preternaturally bright when Julia slipped outside. She had not been sleeping well—had hardly slept at all, in fact, since the night she received that call from Barnabas—and tonight she had wakened suddenly out of a vivid, troubling dream.

It was so odd. She was a little girl again, and she was in the woods near Collinsport—though she never _had_ been there as a little girl. But the location was as clear and familiar in her mind as if she went there every day. She was gathering herbs and roots in her apron to bring to her friend, an older girl named Angélique. …

Now, as she made her way to that spot in the woods—one hand carrying her flashlight, the other resting on the crucifix in her bag—she was fully aware that this was quite possibly the stupidest thing she'd ever done. But if that dream was genuine, if she did indeed have some personal connection to Angélique from the long-distant past, she might be able to use it to help Barnabas in some way. At the very least, she might learn something from visiting (revisiting?) the site.

She was not alone in the woods. Ahead of her, David Collins was squatting on his heels in front of a fire and stirring the contents of a small cooking pot, the kind used for camping. Beside him on the ground was his pencil box. As Julia approached, he looked up and smiled.

"_Bienvenue,_" he said in a voice not his own, a voice not quite human. Julia knew she was in the presence of Angélique. "I knew you would come."

Julia swallowed hard. She had not expected a welcome from this creature. A display of demonic violence would have frightened her less.

"I know who you are," she said.

"As I know you," he (she? it?) replied. "I recognized you when you first came to the house. Blood is your element, as it is mine. In another life, you were my pupil."

A chill started at the base of Julia's spine and traveled up to her scalp. Part of her wanted to run away; part of her, haunted by the memory of her dream and oddly fascinated by the scene at hand, wanted to stay and see how it would play out.

"I know what is in your mind." As he spoke, David took out a pocketknife and casually sliced into his own palm. Julia watched, stunned and revolted, as he squeezed a trickle of blood into the simmering pot. "You care for _him;_ you would help him if you could. But he cares nothing for you. Your love, your pain, your good intentions, are nothing to him. He has given his heart to someone prettier … younger …"

With an effort, Julia swallowed something bitter and corrosive and managed to speak calmly.

"And why must his family suffer? Why do you hate them so?"

"Because they are part of him. And because he loves them above all things, except _her._ … But the tree is rotten at its core. One more strong wind, _et voilà!_—down it goes. Now watch, my dear. Witness the end of the Collins family, sealed with the blood of a Collins man."

Julia stared at him—at the countenance of implacable, inhuman hatred that darkened his young face—and, for the first time in her life, felt completely powerless.

"When will it end?"

"When Barnabas Collins is destroyed." David opened his pencil box, took out what looked like a folded-up piece of paper, and dropped it into the pot. "And it will start with the girl he loves."


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Alone in her room, Victoria locked the door, drew the curtains, and feverishly packed an overnight bag. Then she switched off the light so as not to attract any attention from outside. Even with the curtains drawn, the full moon seemed to penetrate the room like an all-seeing eye.

She sat huddled on her bed, her arms wrapped around her legs, listening as the long hours ticked away. The moment the sun came up, she would sneak out of the house, run down to the train station and buy the first ticket to anywhere. But in the meantime she must stay put, imprisoned in her room, and pray that Barnabas had no power over locked doors and windows.

The cross necklace Dr. Hoffman had given her lay on her bedside table. She picked it up, looked at it uncertainly, then put it on. _Better than nothing,_ she thought.

Since the moment she had discovered what Barnabas really was, she had not thought about anything except making her escape. But now, with nothing to do but wait, she found herself thinking about those she would leave behind. Dr. Hoffman had said that the people at Collinwood would not be safe until she, Victoria, was gone; but would they, even then? Would anyone in Collinsport be safe? Dr. Hoffman seemed to have the situation in hand—at least, she had encountered Barnabas before and survived—but she might well be in league with the evil presence that pervaded this house.

If there was only some way she could warn the family! But who would believe her? David and Carolyn would; Elizabeth and Roger would not. And even if they did, would that knowledge protect them or put them in greater danger?

A note. She could leave them that, at least. She got out a pen and paper, crouched down by the window where the moonlight was clearest, and tried to write. Her fingers shook so badly she could hardly hold the pen.

Suddenly she knew he was there.

She dropped the pen and stood up. Very slowly, holding her breath, she put her eye to the slit between the curtains. He was standing in the driveway below, looking directly at her.

_Josette._

She backed away, crawled onto her bed, and buried her head under the pillow. _I'm not Josette. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not . . ._

But she could still hear him in her mind.

_Josette. Come to me._

To her horror, her body rose of its own accord. She fought it—tried to cling to the bedpost, to dig her heels into the floor—but her nerves and muscles were responding to a will other than her own. The cross suddenly felt like a dead weight around her neck. Her fingers unfastened the chain and let it fall to the floor.

She moved like a sleepwalker down the stairs and out the front door. Barnabas met her in the shadow of the house and took her in his arms. He was so cold, as cold as death, and yet the lips that kissed her and murmured her name—no, Josette's name—were strangely warm. She wanted to scream, to run, but could not; she could only watch helplessly, from the part of her mind that was still her own, as she raised her face to his and kissed him back with treacherous desire.

When his teeth pierced her neck, the pain—even though she was expecting it, almost longing for it—was astonishing. The shock of it forced her eyes open, brought the power of independent motion back to her body. She struggled against him, tore herself free from his grasp, and ran.

…

The fumes from the cooking pot—a sweetish, nauseous herbal smell—went straight to Julia's head. As she watched David's rhythmic gestures and listened to Angélique's voice chanting softly through his lips, she felt overcome by a warm, euphoric lethargy, not unlike a pleasant dream. Fear and memory were dulled; she was no longer sure of who she was or why she was out here, and it no longer mattered. Nothing seemed real anymore except the fire, the singing, and this strange, dark sisterhood. . . .

Somewhere in the distance, she could hear someone running. Only for a moment, and then the footsteps died away. But that moment was enough for Julia to come back to herself. She remembered, all at once—horrified that she could ever have forgotten—Barnabas, Victoria, the Collinses, all of them under Angélique's spell; and she clung desperately to that shred of consciousness, that spark of free will.

Slowly she rose to her feet, swaying to the rhythm of the incantations, as if to dance. David went on chanting, rocking back and forth on his heels. Then, before he could stop her, she kicked the pot over, sending its contents into the fire.

With a shriek of rage, he stretched out his hands to rescue the sizzling mess. His shirt caught fire, and Julia shoved him down onto the ground, trying to smother or beat the flame out. He fought back viciously, tooth and claw, with more than human strength; she was grappling, not with flesh and blood, but with a dark and monstrous entity that threatened to tear her apart.

"David!" she half cried out, half gasped. "David, stop!"—and the _thing_ took her by the throat, choking off utterance. Her lungs strained for breath; her head filled with a noise like beating wings, as if the _thing_ was struggling to break free and fly upward. David gave a ghastly scream and then was still.

For an awful moment Julia thought that she, or Angélique, had killed him. But then she realized that he was still breathing, and so was she, albeit raggedly. The rushing noise in her head gradually died down to her own heartbeat. And David Collins was just a little boy again, badly injured, sobbing on the ground.

Julia carefully gathered him up in her arms. She was also severely burned and bruised, but she did not yet feel pain—only pity for the boy. "It's okay," she said shakily. "It's okay now. She's gone. I'm taking you home."

She trudged through the woods to Collinwood, wincing at every step, and thinking of the footsteps she had heard. She had a horrible suspicion that it was Victoria running for her life, with Barnabas, and now perhaps the demon of Angélique, in pursuit.

_It will start with the girl he loves._

Was it too late? By interrupting the spell, had Julia actually undone anything? Or had events been irrevocably set in motion?

"Don't do it, Barnabas," she muttered through gritted teeth. "Don't let it happen again."

…

_I'm going to die. _That was the only thought in Victoria's panicked brain as she plunged blindly through the woods. Any moment she might fall headlong and break her neck, or dash her skull against a tree trunk, or her heart might burst from running so hard. She hoped she _would_ die before Barnabas reached her. She dared not look back, but she knew he was there—running swiftly, silently, only a step or two behind.

Abruptly the trees ended, and she was dazzled by a glittering radiance—the moonlight on the sea. She kept running toward it, impelled by terror and despair. She had been here a hundred times, in dreams, just like this; she knew how it would end.

"Victoria, no! Don't!"

She tried to stop, but her shoes skidded on a bit of loose earth. She lost her balance, tottered and fell. For a split second she felt a terrifying sensation of weightlessness—a searing, wrenching pain in her arm—then nothing more.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

That night Collinwood was in an uproar. No sooner had Julia staggered into the house, carrying the sobbing and injured David, than Barnabas arrived as well, with Victoria unconscious in his arms. She had a dislocated shoulder and two streaming wounds in her neck, and Barnabas's shirt was covered with her blood; but she was alive—barely.

As Elizabeth and Mrs. Johnson hurriedly applied first aid, Julia and Barnabas offered somewhat disjointed explanations. David had gotten into Roger's camping gear and sneaked out into the woods to play with fire; meanwhile, Barnabas had rescued Victoria from her attacker, who had gotten away. Amid the crisis, no one questioned how both Julia and Barnabas had happened to be out in the woods in the middle of the night, at just the right time.

"We've got to get them to the hospital," said Roger. "You too, Barnabas."

"I'm not hurt."

"You're in shock," he insisted. "Let us take you to a doctor."

Barnabas was indeed gray-faced and hollow-eyed, and trembling all over; but he put out his hand in a gesture of finality. "I'm all right. I'm going home."

There was something in his voice that even Roger dared not challenge. As the Collins family drove off to the hospital, Barnabas returned to the Old House. When the police came to his door later that night to question him, he received them calmly, gave them a vague but plausible version of events, and regretted that he couldn't be of more help; but after they had gone, he did not receive any visitors or emerge from the Old House for several nights. What state he was in and what he did during that time, only Willie Loomis knew.

…

_My name is Victoria Winters._

As she drifted in and out of consciousness, she clung to that thought—_her_ name, her identity, and no one else's. A life ahead of her. A fate not yet written.

Occasionally she had a vague awareness of her surroundings: being half led, half carried into the emergency room; lying in a hospital bed with an IV in her arm; and then waking up in her own room at Collinwood. Elizabeth and Mrs. Johnson were standing over her bed, watching her anxiously.

"What happened?" she croaked. Her throat felt parched.

"It's all right. You're safe now." Elizabeth's cool fingers smoothed her hair back from her forehead. "Cousin Barnabas saved your life."

"Barnabas . . .?"

There was something about Barnabas, something she desperately needed to tell them, if only she could remember what it was. But her memories of the past few days were a dark fog, and there was a strong sedative coursing through her veins. She slept again. . . .

She was at the Old House, in the parlor. The windows were open, the curtains fluttering in the warm, honeysuckle-scented twilight. It was so beautiful here. As she looked on her gracious surroundings, her heart filled with love and a sense of belonging.

"Barnabas?"

She was certain he must be here—in the next room, surely—but there was no answer. "Barnabas, where are you?"

She was alone. No, not alone. Something was wrong.

Turning slowly, she saw the Collins family standing by the hearth, dressed in the clothes of a bygone century. Even as she recognized their faces—Roger, Elizabeth, David, Carolyn—from some hidden recess in her mind rose other memories, other identities: Joshua. Naomi. Daniel. Millicent. The wounds in Millicent's neck were open and raw. She was holding hands with a handsome young man Victoria had never seen before, who she knew instinctively was named Jeremiah. And there was a sweet-faced little girl, clinging shyly to Elizabeth-Naomi's long skirts, whom she recognized as Sarah.

Then there were others—oh, so many, crowding all around her, and yet she could see each one clearly—their faces, their names, the terrible longing in their eyes. Men who had known violence, isolation, and despair. Women who had handed down heartbreak like an heirloom through the generations. Children who had never known security or peace, who were haunted still by a nameless, ageless fear.

_Help us, Victoria Winters. _Their collective plea resounded in her consciousness, swelling and then ebbing, like waves of the sea. _Help us._

"How?"

_Never leave. We need you._

She saw the living Collinses, too, more clearly than she had ever seen them. Carolyn, abandoned by her father; David, abandoned by his mother. Roger and Elizabeth, distancing themselves from their children and from reality—Roger by shutting himself in his studio, Elizabeth by drifting off into her own private world—neither of them able to face or comprehend the dark forces that threatened Collinwood. They needed her, too.

And Barnabas. Oh, Barnabas most of all.

_Help us._

_Never leave._

_Help us. . . ._

When she woke again, she remembered everything.

And she began to realize what she had to do.

…

Barnabas finished nailing the last board in place, sealing off the ruin of Josette's room, and laid his hammer down. Then he walked through each of the other rooms, gazing at each beloved object, as if to say goodbye.

He could not say goodbye to his family at the Great House. Going back there was quite out of the question, after what he had done to Carolyn—to Victoria. . . . Better to leave their world quietly, as he had entered it. And now, at last, he was ready to leave for good.

Curiously, he felt no fear or grief now, but only a bleak resignation. It was as if all petty, self-serving emotion had been killed in him the moment he looked down and saw Victoria half-dead in his arms. Once he had realized he was capable of _that,_ hell and the grave had no terrors for him. As long as he existed, Victoria would not be safe; therefore, his existence must end. It was as simple as that.

Willie was waiting for him in the entrance hall. "Anything I can do for you, Barnabas, sir?"

"Actually . . ." Barnabas closed his eyes for a moment, as if in weariness. "I think I'll just sit in the drawing room for awhile. Go and open the drapes in there, will you? There's a fine moon tonight."

There was a fine moon, but it was too late at night to see the moon from the drawing room's east-facing windows. Willie chewed his lip, vaguely suspicious of whatever Barnabas had in mind, but did as he was told.

"Good lad." Barnabas smiled wanly and patted him on the shoulder. "Go on, now. I'd like to be alone."

"I'll be in the parlor if you need anything."

"Thank you, Willie."

He lit a candle, then sat down in a tall-backed chair facing the windows. Outside, all was silver-hued darkness; inside, the glass dimly reflected the candle flame and the chair (apparently empty) in which he sat. An interesting image, he thought detachedly—a kind of _memento mori._

How long would it take, he wondered? Would he linger long enough to actually see the sun, to feel its warmth, before it consumed him? Or would the first ray that touched him be the end of sight and sense? . . .

Sunrise. He closed his eyes, remembering Martinique. Sunrise on the beach. A beautiful woman with dark hair and hazel eyes, gazing out to sea . . . a woman he had never seen before but would have recognized anywhere, at any time, as the one woman in the world for him.

_Goodbye, my love._

"Hello, Barnabas."

His eyes flew open. It was still dark, and he was not dreaming. Trembling, he slowly rose from his chair and turned to face Victoria, who stood in the doorway.

She looked well, if a little paler than usual. Her expression was gentle; there was no fear or accusation in her face. But there was a bloodstone cross around her neck—an ornament whose significance he could not possibly mistake. He recoiled slightly at the sight of it.

She knew. She remembered everything. And yet she had come here alone, unarmed. _Why?_

He cleared his throat, unsure of what to say. "How . . . ?"

"Willie let me in." She smiled. "Don't be angry with him. I think he's worried about you."

"What are you doing here?"

"I've been worried about you, too." Hesitantly, she came a little nearer. "And I never got a chance to thank you."

"For what?"

"For saving my life."

Impossible to respond to this. He swallowed hard.

"How is everyone?"

"Dr. Hoffman had to go back to New York," she said, "and the Collinses are in Europe. Roger and Elizabeth decided the kids needed a change of scene. They'll be back in a few weeks."

"And they left you alone? Are they mad?"

"I'm not alone. I'm staying with Mrs. Johnson and her sister in town."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because I trust you."

"Then you're a fool." He turned back to the window, to the emptiness where his reflection should have been. "Get out of here, Victoria. Leave this accursed town. You can't save me or anyone but yourself."

"I'm not leaving," she said quietly. "Collinwood is my home now, and the Collinses are the only family I've ever had. I won't abandon them. And that includes you."

There was a silence. She came nearer still.

"You did save my life, you know. You called me by name—_my_ name—and caught my arm when I fell. I remember."

"I nearly killed you."

"But you didn't. And you didn't kill Carolyn either."

"I've killed before."

"I know. But it wasn't you, not really. _She_ made you do it—made you what you are. And I think, deep down, you're stronger than she is. It's you that I trust, Barnabas. Don't you see?"

He closed his eyes on sudden tears. "Angélique will come back," he predicted gloomily. "Sooner or later, in one form or another. She'll never let us have any peace."

"Then we'll find a way to stop her. Together."

"But if I cannot control myself—if I can't protect you—" He looked into her sweet face and earnest eyes, and his hand reached out, tense with longing, to touch her cheek; but he stopped himself about an inch away. "No, my love, it's insanity for you to stay in Collinsport. You must go."

"Do you love me, Barnabas?"

"Do I?" He smiled ruefully through his tears. "More than you know. For longer than you can imagine."

"I mean me. Not Josette."

"You _are_ Josette."

"Not anymore," she said firmly. "All my life, before I came here, I wondered who I was. I never felt sure of anything except my name. . . . But knowing that I've had this past life—this past love—I've finally begun to realize who I am now. I belong here, on this land, with this family. And I belong with you. Josette was robbed of her life with you, but _I_ won't be."

Before he could say anything, she drew his face down to hers and kissed him. For a moment he forgot the danger she was in—forgot everything, in fact, but the unutterable sweetness of being near her, and the truth in what she'd said. They did belong together, as they always had. She could not leave him; and neither, he realized, could he leave her.

When she finally drew back, he took a step back as well, to prevent himself from clasping her in his arms and never letting her go. "You'd better go back to Mrs. Johnson," he said with what composure he could muster. "The sun will be up soon. And Victoria . . ."

"Yes?"

He paused. Of the many things he wanted to say to her, he could only find voice for one. "Be careful. Don't go out alone."

She smiled somewhat mysteriously. "I never am."

Before he could ask what she meant by that, she had gone. He listened to her footsteps through the entrance hall and out the front door, with Willie's following closely behind. Good man, Willie.

Again Barnabas wandered restlessly through his house; but this time, it seemed, he saw his surroundings through new eyes. The beautiful things in each room were beautiful still, yet somehow no longer important in themselves. He passed Josette's sealed-off room without sorrow; there was nothing for him in there. Love was no longer an ancient memory to be locked up and brooded over, but a living force once more—a source of hope.

Angélique had not won. Not yet. And when she did return, she would have to contend not only with Barnabas, but with the woman he loved. Victoria was aptly named indeed: brave, true, unconquerable spirit! He loved her now more than ever.

Now, for the first time in centuries, he could _feel_—not merely imagine—the presence of many souls who loved him, whom he had loved well in life. There was hope, then, not only for him but for all the Collinses, the living and the dead. He could not abandon them any more than he could abandon Victoria. Here, on his ancestral ground, close to his true love, was where he belonged. And here he would remain.

Home.


End file.
